


Blood Drunk

by Felle_DesignWorks (Felle)



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Body Horror, F/F, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2020-05-15 04:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felle/pseuds/Felle_DesignWorks
Summary: Glimmer needs a better-paying job if she doesn't want to be forced to move back in with her mother. Freshly-turned vampire Catra is in need of a regular source of blood. It's a simple enough job...isn't it?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonwatcher13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonwatcher13/gifts).



> So since this story hops around quite a bit ship-wise, I've been asked to include a table of contents, as it were, to let people know where to jump to if they're looking for a particular ship:
> 
> Chapter 1: Glitra  
> Chapter 2: Glitra  
> Chapter 3: Glitra  
> Chapter 4: Glitradora  
> Chapter 5: Catradora  
> Chapter 6: Glimmadora  
> Chapter 7: Glitra  
> Chapter 8: Adora/Double Trouble-as-Mara  
> Chapter 9: No Pairing

“I still don’t know about this.”

Glimmer let out a frustrated sigh as they walked down the street. She’d heard the same line all morning and at almost every stop on the train ride over, and Bow still had yet to come to a conclusion. “Neither do I, but we need the money, right? My mom got us this interview, so we should at least go and see what it’s about. It’s basically working for ten minutes a week, it’d be stupid to not at least see if it’s something we can do. Is this the place?”

She checked her phone to make sure the navigation had led them in the right direction. The corner building was tall and elegant, rising above several of its neighbors, though it lacked any indication of what it was from the outside apart from a regular office building. A placard reading _Grayskull and Horde Associates_ was the only ornamentation beside the door, which slid silently open when they approached it.

The first thing that made Glimmer’s skin prick up was how empty it seemed. For such a large lobby, taking up at least three floors and stretching across so much of the floor plan that pillars were necessary in places to support the upper levels, there seemed to be remarkably few people making any use of it. Glimmer could see movement from behind the frosted glass of a security office nearby, a pair of women on a couch in one corner giving them unnervingly appraising looks, and a single receptionist sitting behind a massive desk flanked by elevator doors. Bow’s stride faltered somewhat under the scrutiny and he fell a step behind Glimmer as they approached the front desk.

“Good afternoon!” the receptionist said, almost too brightly for what this place was supposed to be. Perfuma, her nametag read, and the light floral scent hanging over her made her seem to deserve the name. “How can I—”

One of the phones it front of her rang, echoing in the cavernous space, and she took it after a quick, clipped apology to them. “Lobby…yes, two…of course. Good day, ma’am.” She dropped the handset onto its cradle and produced a pair of visitor’s badges that she slid across the desk to them. “If you’d please take the elevator to your left.”

Almost on cue, it chimed and opened. Glimmer took her badge, then looked around. “How did they know we were here? There aren’t any cameras here.”

“It’s very difficult for certain people to miss unfamiliar scents around here,” Perfuma said, and stood to lead them to the elevator. “This way, please.”

That didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. Regardless, Glimmer and Bow pressed on behind her, slipping into the elevator as the doors slid smoothly shut behind them. Perfuma took a key from her belt and put it into the control panel to start its ascent. Bow rocked back and forth on his heels, looking every which way like a caged rat in desperate need of an escape route. “Um, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but…are you one?” he asked.

Perfuma gave him a thin smile, indicating that she knew exactly what he was asking. “One what, sir?”

“A—” Bow seemed to stumble over the word until he screwed up his courage to breathe some reality into the situation. “A vampire?”

“No, I’m not. Nor am I a blood bank, so I really can’t tell you what to expect,” she said. “I imagine it’ll be much like any other job interview, though.”

“We can still refuse, right?” Bow asked. “They’re not going to chain us up or anything?”

“They might, if you ask nicely enough…but the laws are quite strict about forcible feeding and thralldom. You have nothing to worry about, this organization is entirely above-board.”

Glimmer’s heart was pounding by the time the elevator stopped, and the thought that it would only make her more obvious to any vampires in the building did nothing to slow it down. Perfuma led them down a hallway covered in deep black marble to a pair of heavy oak doors. She knocked quickly on one and stuck her head in. “Ma’am, your one o’clocks are here,” Perfuma said, then stepped back to open the door the rest of the way. “Best of luck to both of you.”

The board room they stepped into would normally have been looking out over the street they took to get to the building, had the shades not been drawn. As it was, the room was left with just enough light to make out the two women standing at one end of the table. Glimmer had only a nebulous idea of what vampires looked like in real life, but her vague imaginings on the train ride over hadn’t included a magicat with mismatched eyes in a slimly cut business suit, or a hauntingly beautiful blonde woman in a sheer blood-red dress, tall enough to tower over all of them with arms that looked as though she could lift the three of them without breaking a sweat. Her heart kicked against her chest, and Glimmer thought she saw the magicat’s nostrils flare.

“Good afternoon,” the blonde woman said, laying a pleasant smile on them. Almost in spite of her nerves, Glimmer found herself relaxing under her gaze. “Bow and Glimmer, was it? My name is Adora, this is Catra. Please, have a seat.”

Adora gestured to a pair of plush seats at the conference table facing a pair on the opposite side. Bow sat down quickly, likely glad to be off his feet, while Glimmer took the space beside him. Catra stalked her way toward the other side, but changed course when she was behind them and started taking a step toward the humans. Adora was at her side in the span of a blink, clutching Catra’s wrist so hard that the muscles in her arm flexed and pulled taut. “ _Sit_ ,” she hissed, then smiled at her guests as Catra did so. “Please don’t mind her, she’s…new to this. That’s actually the reason we have these openings at all, Catra used to be my blood bank until recently.”

Glimmer swallowed hard. She knew that most of the rumors surrounding vampires were exaggerated, but a newly turned one still had to be more dangerous than one with a few decades under her belt. And a magicat with claws and fangs to begin with…her shiver was hard to contain, and it didn’t go unnoticed by the object of her unease. Catra’s eyes, already hyper-focused slits in the low light, narrowed as they lingered on her. It took Adora sliding a small stack of papers in front of each of them to tear her focus away.

“I happened to have my old sample contract handy, so I’ve taken the liberty of filling in the appropriate blanks,” she said as they looked down at their job offers. “There’s a notion that this job is only a few minutes of work every week, and while feeding only lasts about ten minutes, there are stipulations, as you can see. We do require nondisclosure agreements lasting for the length of your tenure here. Obviously, the health of both parties is paramount, and that begins on your end of things. We have medical staff in-house for biweekly checkups that we cover, of course. You would also have to consent to a modified vaccine schedule and agree to abstain from getting tattoos to avoid any possible blood tinge, as well as disclose any medications that could thin or clot your blood. A regular exercise regimen is also recommended to promote good circulation, and there are a number of healthy markets and eateries nearby that we would ask form the majority of your diet. Everyone has their own particular preferences, you see, and different foods affect the taste of the blood. But that’s a matter for each particular pair to work out between themselves.”

“W-what kind of taste do you like?” Bow asked. Adora leaned back in her chair with an impossibly small half-smile and picked up a pen beside another stack of papers, spinning it between her fingers so fluidly that it was difficult to track. “Er, ma’am.”

The pen stopped in an instant between her first two fingers, and Adora slowly extended the nib to rest it point-down on her paper. Bow sat up a little straighter. Adora’s grin grew until it was obvious. “Don’t be worried, it’s perfectly fine to ask questions. You’re evaluating us as much as we’re evaluating you. Remind me, what was it that I liked for your diet, Catra?”

Her voice was tight and strained, perhaps by the two humans right in front of her, full of blood. “Meat.”

“That’s right…but let’s not dwell only on what we would be asking of you. On the second page is our current salary structure and benefits package. We also provide a per diem for purchases at the approved grocers and restaurants, reimbursement is every Friday after the receipts are submitted. Where you live is your choice, but we do own an apartment building on the next block with very preferable rates for employees. There are also a number of counselors on staff here who understand the unique situation you’d be entering into.”

Glimmer had to stifle a yelp when she saw the numbers. They were willing to cover more in food every week than she made in a month at her old job, to say nothing of the salary and the value of the benefits they were offering. What had been trepidatious curiosity that morning became eager fascination.

Adora took a breath for what seemed to be the first time since they had walked in. Perhaps it _was_ , Glimmer realized. “Finally, we consider the first month as something of a trial period for both parties, when you can get a feel for if this is something you’re willing to do long-term. Paid training, if you like. If both parties decide to continue after that, they can go on for as long as things are acceptable. If our half of the relationship decides to dissolve things, you would receive three months’ severance. If your half wants to leave, we do ask for two weeks’ notice to arrange for temporary replacements. So,” she said, steepling her fingers, “do you have any questions?”

_When can I start_ , Glimmer wanted to say, but she forced herself to pull the reins in and approach this with a level head. She looked at Bow and tried to indicate her interest with half a shrug and several suggestive eyebrow wiggles. His mouth slanted into a frown before he looked over his contract again. He had been more skeptical of this whole affair from the beginning, but with the kind of offer right in front of them, turning it down would be plainly stupid, and he knew it. Finally, Bow gave her a small nod. Glimmer smoothed her expression to make her interest less obvious. “It seems like we could at least go through the trial period and see what it’s about,” she said, though she had no idea if her negotiation was any good against people who could smell the excitement in her blood. “But there are two of us here, and it doesn’t sound like vampires…share, so how do we decide the way we pair off?”

Adora cocked her head toward her companion. “Catra and I agreed when I turned her that she could choose her bank.” She reached over and ran her thumb over the ridge of Catra’s ear, eking out a purr from deep in her body. Glimmer’s chest tightened. “Turnlings are so sensitive. Go ahead, dear. Pick.”

When Catra had composed herself, she stood and moved slowly around the table to inspect them. Glimmer struggled to keep her breathing even. The rational part of her mind rather hoped she would be passed over in favor of Bow, but an equally loud part was hoping to be chosen. If adrenaline made the scent of her blood more appealing, then she had to be a shoe-in.

Catra’s already slow pace slowed to a crawl when she was behind them, carefully taking them in. One finger dragged across the back of Glimmer’s chair, and she seemed to be moving on to Bow when she abruptly stopped and laid her hand on Glimmer’s shoulder. “This one.”

“Don’t be rude, Catra, she has a name,” Adora chided. “Go on, ask her. The way I asked you.”

Glimmer turned her chair around to face the vampire. Up close, she could see that Catra had the beginnings of the same ethereal beauty as Adora, but fresher, less refined. She was sharp angles from head to toe, and Glimmer knew that she could cut herself on those edges if she wasn’t careful.

Of course, she could stand to bleed a little.

Catra shifted her weight from heel to heel. Obviously the courtesies of such an arrangement weren’t her strong suit. “Glimmer, would you…would you honor me with the gift of your blood, and accept my protection and devotion as long as we both will it?”

Her throat was too dry to answer for a moment. This sounded altogether too much like a marriage vow, though the thought didn’t send her running. Catra made a small motion to prompt her, waiting expectantly for her answer. “Yes,” she said, still a bit breathless.

Catra’s shoulders slumped in relief, and Adora slid her pen across the table to Glimmer. “Wonderful. All that’s left is for both of you to sign. It’s only a preliminary agreement for the first month, so the finer details can all be discussed at a later date.”

Glimmer flipped to the last page of her contract and signed in the space indicated for her. She passed the pen, and Catra’s fingers slid over her hand before she leaned down to finalize the contract. “Good,” Adora said. “Bow, I trust you have no objections to being my bank?”

“Ah, no. No, ma’am.”

They repeated the vow between themselves, then signed their own contract. Just like that, they were essentially walking meals for vampires who were so much more powerful than them that it was almost comical. Glimmer wondered how her mother would react to hearing about her new job. Adora flashed them a broad smile. “I’m glad that we were able to settle this quickly. Bow, would you mind waiting in the break room across the hall while I speak with Glimmer and Catra? Help yourself to a drink, or a snack…especially the capicolla. I’ll join you in a few minutes to talk with you privately.”

All his previous misgivings aside, Bow seemed slightly put out at being excluded so soon. He nodded and started to bump Glimmer’s shoulder for good luck, but a glower from Catra made him turn it into a thumbs-up before he slipped out of the room. “I had almost forgotten about that possessive impulse turnlings have over their banks,” Adora said, her voice tinged with a slight nostalgia. “I hardly let my first out of arm’s reach for a month. Oh, but things are different now.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” Glimmer asked. Adora grinned.

“Old enough to know when the history books are wrong. At any rate, I did want to caution you about a few things since you’ll be serving as a bank for a turnling. Honestly, it’s usually a task for someone who’s done this before, but that wasn’t an option this time. It’s important that you go into this well-prepared.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m going to rip her apart,” Catra muttered as she sank into one of the chairs beside Glimmer’s. Her heart skipped, and both vampires fixed on the sound. “I’m not some wild animal.”

“Of course not, dear. But you are coursing with a whole host of new instincts. Turnlings can be a bit enthusiastic during their first few feedings if they aren’t supervised. Think of it like a newly hatched viper, too young to moderate the venom in their bites. Which is why I’m going to be there, to make sure nothing gets out of hand.”

Catra looked as though she was chafing under the eye of an overinvolved parent, but Glimmer sighed in relief. Knowing that she wasn’t being thrown into this alone put her more at ease with what she had just signed up for.

“It would also be good for you two to spend some time together before the first feeding and accustom yourselves to one another,” Adora said. “The more comfortable you are around each other, the easier things will go. I’ll arrange something for tomorrow night for the three of us.”

“You’re not going to do the same with Bow?” Glimmer asked.

“I’ve been at this for a very long time. I’ll acquaint myself with him, of course, but I’m not freshly turned, my impulses aren’t as strong as Catra’s. You two, on the other hand…Catra is my responsibility. Which means that _you_ are my responsibility now, too. I want to make sure everything goes well. Catra, show Glimmer back to the elevator while I have a word with Bow. Perfuma should have some paperwork for you to take home, you can wait in the lobby for your friend if you prefer to leave together.”

Catra was out of her seat and at Glimmer’s side even before she could stand up. An arm wrapped protectively around her waist and guided her out of the room. Glimmer let herself be led, unwilling to try and challenge a new vampire who might not have had an excellent grasp of her new strength—not that she was all too inclined to resist in the first place. She winced a little when they stepped into the hall and the ambient light struck her, until she jabbed at a switch on the wall and everything dimmed.

They were halfway down the corridor before she said anything, and then only in a low voice. “Thanks,” Catra said. “For doing this, I mean.”

“Can you smell my blood?” Glimmer asked, blurting out her question before she could think better of it. Catra flattened her lips and nodded once. “What does it smell like?”

The hand on the small of her back tightened as Catra called the elevator, and the doors slid open almost immediately. “Sweet,” she mumbled, and hurried Glimmer into the elevator. Catra had her hand over her mouth to keep herself in control, but her eyes, one blue and one golden, were fixed on Glimmer until the doors shut, piercing down to her very core.

⁂

It turned out that being a blood bank involved a great deal of paperwork.

Setting aside the release forms she had to send to her doctor, they were asking for no end of information. Some of it made sense—her blood type, medications, dietary restrictions, magic profile, history of drug use, any evidence of hemophilia or arrhythmia. But some that bordered on the intrusive: her hour-by-hour daily schedule, history of blood donation, romantic proclivities, and a survey for ferreting out nonhuman prejudice, among others. Glimmer sighed and fell back on her bed, reminding herself of the money involved to try and muster up the will to continue.

She was saved from diving back in by her phone ringing, though she didn’t recognize the number. It was local, but that was all she could tell. “Hello?”

“Good evening, Glimmer. It’s Adora,” came the smooth, self-assured voice of the elder vampire she had met that afternoon. She shivered. “I was hoping we could discuss a few intricacies of your new position. May I come in?”

“Come in? What, are you at the front door or—”

There was a smart rap on her window, and Glimmer’s heart nearly stopped when she saw Adora there, holding a cell phone up with a sage little smile. When she had recovered enough to do more than gawk, she shuffled off her bed and over to the window, carefully opening the latch and trying not to reflect on the foolishness of inviting a vampire into her bedroom.

Foolish or not, Adora slipped in with far too much grace and looked around the… _modest_ was the kindest word Glimmer could think of to describe her décor. If Adora thought less of her for the surroundings, she didn’t let on. “Wait, that window isn’t where the fire escape is…”

Adora pursed her lips. “Right. Vampire.”

“Indeed. I won’t impose upon you long, I only wanted to let you know privately that Catra might be something of a handful.” Adora strolled to Glimmer’s desk in the corner and sat primly in the chair there. “She was always willful, even for a magicat. But she’s adjusting to a paradigm shift in her life, so I would ask that you be patient with her. And please don’t be surprised if she requests some rather drastic dietary changes after each feeding. She’s still working these things out, you see.”

Glimmer nodded. So she’d gotten the handful between them. Suddenly she was a bit envious of Bow.

“That said, I’ll do my best to keep her in line, and I won’t tolerate her taking undue liberties. I recognize that this is a lot to ask of someone who’s never done this before, so I’ll find someone else for her if it becomes too much for you.”

For better or worse, the suggestion that she might burn out stoked something within Glimmer. She doubted Bow would get the you-can-quit-if-it’s-too-tough lecture, so why her? Her arms folded over her chest, and her chin jutted out proudly. “I think I can handle it.”

“Well.” Adora stood and strode to the window. She managed to make even that simple movement seem graceful and fascinating. “I applaud your determination. I’ve scheduled a small excursion for the three of us tomorrow night, I’ll send along the details in the morning. Good night, Glimmer. Sleep well.”

Despite her apparent sincerity, even Adora’s well-wishing seemed laced with something that managed to unnerve her. Glimmer watched her slip through the window and out of view, having vanished completely when Glimmer went over to lock it again. “Vampires,” she said, and then remembering that Adora could easily still be within earshot, added, “sure are interesting!”

⁂

Adora’s message only indicated that she had rented time at a go-kart place for that evening, not that she had rented the entire place out. Even the staff seemed to have been paid to keep to the front office for the night. Glimmer supposed that she shouldn’t have been surprised, given how exacting Adora seemed to be, but it made for a rather unsettling experience as she walked around the place.

“Good, you’re punctual.”

Glimmer whipped around and saw Catra and Adora behind her, wearing more casual outfits than what they had used in the board room. She was quite sure no one had been behind her, but…vampires. It seemed as though sticking to that rationale would make her life significantly easier going forward.

Though it wasn’t as if she was unhappy to see them. Catra had opted for a black button-down and matching slacks with space for her tail to swish freely behind her, while Adora had chosen a red leather jacket over a plain white top. Glimmer wondered if becoming a vampire made one’s clothes fit better, or if they had an especially skilled tailor somewhere. Whatever the case, her simple blue track jacket couldn’t hope to match the careful cut of their outfits.

“Catra was never on time for a single solitary thing when she was my bank,” Adora said, continuing as she walked past Glimmer to the track overlook. Catra, for her part, stopped beside Glimmer and wordlessly beckoned her on, sliding one hand around her waist again. As much as it seemed presumptuous, Glimmer couldn’t say she minded all that badly. Catra led the way along the path to the track, wincing when some of the clouds overhead parted and allowed the moon to shine on them.

“Even moonlight bothers you?” Glimmer asked. If vampires were this sensitive, perhaps the umbrella industry was missing out on an important periphery demographic.

“I turned a week ago, a nightlight bothers me.” Catra sniffed and cleared her throat. “Uh, thanks for coming. Your hair looks…very cotton candy-ish tonight.”

“Thank you?”

Perhaps it was a mercy that they would be driving and unable to talk. When they came down to the bay containing the go-karts, Catra looked around for Adora, who was still at the overlook above them. “This was your idea, aren’t you going to come down here?”

“My idea was for you two to get to know each other better, I’m fine where I am. You know how I like to watch, dear.”

Glimmer bit back on a shiver as she picked out a kart and put on a helmet. Catra was looking at her own helmet, perhaps wondering if she actually needed it given her new durability, but ultimately put it on. When they were fastened in, Catra led the way out to the track proper, a large loop with a few twists and a single hairpin near the end of the circuit. “Practice lap?” she asked. Despite not raising her voice over the steady rumble of the engines, Glimmer had no trouble hearing her.

“Sure.”

They took the track slowly, acquainting themselves with its twists and turns to avoid crashing out later, though Catra pulled ahead in the final stretch and ended up waiting for her at the checkerboard, smirking a little. Glimmer squared her shoulders as she pulled up alongside her.

“I wondered when you would show up,” Catra said. “You can follow my brake lights if you get lost again.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

She turned and looked at Glimmer, mismatched eyes sweeping over her and drawing up goosebumps as they passed. “Little late to say that…”

“All right, you’ve got bumpers on those things, so I want to see a good dirty race, lots of bashing and crashing, something to really get the blood pumping,” Adora said from the overlook. Red lights blazed to life on either side of the starting line. “Threetwoonego!”

The red lights flipped to green in an instant. Glimmer slammed on the gas as fast as she could, but she couldn’t hope to match a vampire’s reflexes. Catra was already ahead of her, turning off from the first straightaway. She hadn’t really expected to _win_ , but she had at least wanted it to be close. Glimmer pressed her pedal into the floor and tried to close the distance between them.

At the first curve, Catra had slowed down to stay on the track’s interior, but Glimmer was taking no such precautions. She leaned against the turn, still gunning her engine as she zipped past her opponent. Catra sped up to match, bumping at the rear of Glimmer’s kart and making the wheels wobble slightly. On the next straightaway, they were neck and neck, trading little impacts until another curve forced them to slow down.

The first two laps went to Catra. It was no great surprise, but Glimmer knew she had to at least make her earn a total victory. She had the ace up her sleeve, she supposed, but doing it at such high speeds wasn’t what she would call safe. Glimmer rocketed forward to close the distance between them when they were closing on the finish line, but both of their karts were redlining already with no way to make them go any faster. The short straightaway immediately ahead of the finish line was her only chance to do anything and make it competitive, if nothing else. Glimmer pulled at the latent magical energy in the air around her and focused on the asphalt immediately in front of the finish line. There was a _snap_ of coldness, and suddenly she was ahead of Catra, streaking over the finish line with a victorious cry.

“Score one for the humans,” she said as she skidded to a stop and clambered out of the kart.

Catra was on her before she could unbuckle her helmet and set it down, grabbing her by the arm and holding it up to immobilize her. “You _cheated_ ,” Catra said, her voice barely more than a growl. “You never told me you could teleport!”

Glimmer looked up at the observation deck, but Adora was gone. A pit began to form in her stomach. She tried to pull her arm back, but her strength was hopelessly overmatched. “Like you weren’t using your super-reflexes as much as you could?” Glimmer bit back. Her accusation only made Catra bare her fangs. “And it’s—called _slip magic_!”

She swept at Catra’s legs, and in an instant they were throwing their free hands at one another. Glimmer knew she couldn’t do any real damage, and Catra had to be pulling her punches to prevent any bruises or serious injuries, but she was still angry. All too easily, she wrestled Glimmer to the ground, pinning her down with hands on her wrists and legs pressed over her thighs. Their struggle ground to an abrupt halt as they looked at one another. Glimmer thought of jerking her head forward to hit her, but the soft shine of Catra’s lips parting over her fangs was arresting. Catra, too, seemed terribly torn on what she wanted to do now that Glimmer was at her mercy, all but prey to be devoured. The only thing Glimmer was unsure about was which method she would have preferred.

They were spared the awkwardness of having to resolve their impasse by Adora lifting Catra off of Glimmer and holding her up in the air with one hand despite her struggling. Glimmer took Adora’s other offered hand and pulled herself up to her feet. Despite the roughness, there didn’t appear to be any marks or bruises on her wrists.

“I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to do that at the very end,” Adora said, still holding Catra up by her scruff but letting her down enough to stand. “Slip magic is rare. Exceedingly rare. Do you have something to say to Glimmer, dear?”

Catra hissed at her, but Adora simply wasn’t one to be challenged, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry for…that,” she mumbled, with contrition laced into her voice. Then, with a tinge of worry, “Please don’t quit.”

She pitched her head back to expose her neck, the most profound submission a magicat could show. Glimmer crossed her arms, but she couldn’t deny that her heart was racing in a good way after their tussle. “Fine. I won’t quit.”

“Good,” Adora said, then let go of Catra. “Come along dear, that’s enough fun for one night. Safe home, Glimmer. I’ll contact you about the feeding in the morning.”

⁂

“There’s nothing to worry about. Let’s go inside and I can tell you what to expect.”

Glimmer couldn’t help feeling underdressed, adorned in what amounted to a strapless bikini as she was, compared to Adora’s smart business suit. It left her shoulders and neck exposed, which made sense, but the rest seemed odd. The source of her nerves was entirely elsewhere though, and she had no mind to add to them. All she could do was continue along one of the lower corridors in Adora’s building, trailing behind the woman herself.

“It’s a small room purpose-built for this, you’ll have the stool in the middle and Catra will be in a chair behind you. Since this is her first feeding, I’ll mark a few places on your body to help her along, but over time she’ll find her own preferred sites. The crook of the shoulder is a perennial favorite.” Adora illustrated by pressing at the soft skin there at the base of Glimmer’s neck. “She’ll get it eventually, so try to stay still until the venom takes effect.”

“What happens then?”

The door at the end of the hall slid open at their approach, and the room beyond was exactly as Adora described it: small, intimate, devoid of furniture but a stool and a high-backed chair behind it. “Then you just…relax. The fangs will pinch, but it will feel _so_ much better afterward. Like a masseuse working out a knot. And I’ll be here to make sure nothing gets out of hand.”

Glimmer nodded and sat on the stool when Adora prompted her to do so. It felt rather like she was on display—not unlike a choice cut hanging in a butcher’s window. She shivered. Adora produced a marker from within her jacket and made a few marks on Glimmer’s skin as another set of footsteps reached them from the corridor. There was a short staccato of knocks at the door. “Yes, come in, Catra. We’re ready for you.”

Catra’s getup was as skimpy as hers, if not more so. Belatedly, Glimmer realized that it was probably to make any potential cleanup easier. She squirmed as Catra slipped around her and sat down. Glimmer waited, feeling the assertion of her presence on her back, until Catra’s hands settled on her shoulders. Her voice was low and breathy, threaded with need. “I’m going to start, okay?”

“Yeah…”

“You’ll both do fine,” Adora said from the back corner. “Deep breaths, Glimmer.”

She closed her eyes and did as she was told, slightly tilting her head to give Catra a better angle. A pair of soft lips brushed at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and her heart fluttered at the feeling, at being strung tight with expectation—

There was a pinch on her skin, and Glimmer hissed softly through her teeth at the feeling. Her hands bunched into fists in her lap, but it was little different from having blood drawn at a doctor: the feeling persisted, but the discomfort ebbed away as the minutes dragged on. It even started to feel good. _Very_ good, really. Warmth licked all through her body, and her muscles relaxed so much that she began leaning back into Catra’s chest so that she wouldn’t tip over. Glimmer wanted to ask Catra to touch her, to explore her body that had been laid so casually bare, but her voice refused to coalesce into more than vague, needful moans. How could anyone _not_ want this job, she wondered in her haze, when it felt this good?

All too quickly, though, it was over. Catra’s fangs withdrew, and the comfortable pressure of her hands disappeared, replaced by a push forward on her back to sit her up under her own slowly returning power. Glimmer gasped and struggled for breath, dimly aware of the chair scraping behind her as her senses and strength came back to her.

“Catra,” she said, reaching for the orange blur brushing by her. She didn’t stop, and Glimmer grabbed harder at her arm. “Hey, wait…”

“Let me go,” Catra said brusquely. She tried to pull away, but Glimmer wasn’t going to let her go that easily. Before Catra could take another step to the door, Glimmer got up on wobbling legs and forced her to stop. “Hey!”

“You’re just going to _leave_?” Glimmer demanded, still panting as she came down from the high. Catra pursed her lips, a drop of blood still dribbling from the side of her mouth, and she was trying to look anywhere to avoid meeting Glimmer’s eyes. “What, you got what you wanted from me and now you’re off to sleep or—or whatever vampires do at night?”

“No,” she said, straining to even get the single syllable out.

“Glimmer, this is intense in a different way for her,” Adora started to say, but she wasn’t listening.

“You can’t run off after that. You can’t.” Glimmer squeezed at Catra’s shoulders and used them as vantage to pull herself closer to her vampire. There was less than a hand’s width between their faces now, and Glimmer could smell the harsh, metallic scent of her blood still lingering. “Don’t leave me…”

Catra leaned in toward her, so close that her lips brushed on Glimmer. “No, no. Never.”

Glimmer couldn’t properly say who kissed who first, only that it was another wonderful rush of ecstasy blazing through her when they finally connected. Catra seized at her body, arms wrapping tight around her waist to keep her steady. Her warmth, her strength, the roughness of her tongue…Glimmer couldn’t get enough. Mundane things like eating and sleeping seemed so unimportant compared to continuing this pleasure, this _rapture_. Catra’s hands began drifting lower, and Glimmer pushed toward her as best she could. She wanted desperately for Catra to feel how wet she was, to do something about that with her fingers, her mouth…

“All right. You’re both blood drunk right now, you can’t make these kinds of decisions.”

Much as she wanted to stay latched to Catra, Glimmer wasn’t able to resist the pair of hands prying them apart. Adora gently pushed Glimmer aside and held Catra back from closing the distance between them again, ignoring the desperate whines from the younger vampire as she knocked at the door with one foot. “Perfuma, could you please come in here and see Glimmer home? She’s in no condition to get back on her own.”

The receptionist slipped inside almost immediately with Glimmer’s pile of clothes neatly folded and tucked under one arm. That wasn’t what Glimmer wanted at all, she wanted to get back at Catra no matter who might have been watching, but she was beginning to crash after the bliss of her high.

“Okay, come on, we’ll get you dressed in the hall,” Perfuma said, kneeling down slightly to sling one of Glimmer’s arms across her shoulders. Catra hissed and spat at her when she saw someone else touching Glimmer and tried, without success, to claw her way out of Adora’s grip. Perfuma didn’t seem fazed, although she did take a wide path around the two of them to get out of the room. “Miss Catra, I’m only doing this because I was told to, please don’t hold it against me in the morning.”

Everything after the door closed between her and Catra was a blur. Perfuma bandaged Glimmer’s puncture marks and dressed her before helping her out to a company car, loading her into the passenger seat and going out into the city. She saw little more than a blur of lights interspersed with long stretches of darkness as they drove.

“Wow, you really live out in the sticks,” Perfuma was saying when she brought Glimmer to her apartment door. She produced a small laminated card from her pocket and pressed it into Glimmer’s hand. “Those are dietary instructions for bringing your red blood cell count back up. Egg yolks, leafy greens, beans, that sort of thing. Will you be able to get in bed on your own?”

Glimmer nodded slowly and fished her keys from her pocket. “All right then, get some rest. It seems you did very well, from the looks of things. Miss Adora will contact you when everything’s settled to discuss what to do next,” Perfuma said as she ushered Glimmer into her apartment. “Have a pleasant evening.”

As if any pleasure could possibly match _that_.


	2. Chapter 2

All of Catra’s thoughts had narrowed down to a single razor-sharp point, wheeling around the locus that was Glimmer. She was so arresting that there seemed no hope of ever thinking about anything else ever again, of ever wanting, _needing_ anything as badly as her—the scent and feel of her skin, the roll of her tongue and the press of her lips, the taste of her blood…Catra wanted to bite her again. And again and again and again. To drink herself sick on the ichor that was Glimmer’s blood, holding her tight until there was nothing else in the world but them.

And she was being led away.

Catra hissed and clawed in their direction, but Perfuma was still helping Glimmer down the hall, out of sight, out of reach. And Adora still had Catra by the arm, waiting until she calmed down. But how could she? It was as if her eyes had opened for the first time and the world was falling on her to snap them shut again.

“All right, shh, it’s all right,” Adora was saying. Nonsense. Lies. Letting her back at Glimmer, that would be all right. This was…this was terribly, deeply wrong, an affront to every instinct coursing through her. “Come on, you need to lie down before you crash.”

Adora led her down the hall, not to the exit but to an isolation room, empty but for an enormous lock taking up most of the door. “Let me go, don’t take her away,” Catra said through a growl, still fighting vainly against Adora’s grip. “Let—go!”

“I’m glad I had Mermista cancel the rest of my meetings, if this is how you react to fresh blood. Still, you seem much more compatible than I expected…take a breath. I know it doesn’t do anything anymore, but it’ll calm you down.” Rather than hold her with one hand, Adora wrapped her arms around Catra to bind her in place, despite her struggling. Her voice rolled across Catra’s ear and made it twitch. “You’re flying right now, I know. It was the same the first time I tasted Mara. But we don’t live in that world anymore, and I can’t let you run loose while you’re blood drunk like this. Lie down there.”

She loosened her grip ever so slightly, and Catra took the opportunity to redouble her efforts to get free. Adora clamped down again and held tight. “Catra, listen to me: be a good girl and _lie down_.”

She stopped struggling. Catra had known Adora long enough to know when she was close to really using her power, and that drop of concern managed to cut through the haze in her head. Adora let her go, and Catra suddenly found that she had trouble standing. Her legs felt soft, and it seemed a daunting task to stay upright much longer. She wiped at her mouth to dispel the feeling of something in her fur there, but rather than the saliva she expected, a streak of fresh, wet blood covered her forearm. The smell hit her again, summoning up a second wind. Catra began to turn on her heel. Adora was fast, but not so fast that she couldn’t slip by—

The isolation room’s door slammed shut and the massive locking mechanism began spinning into place, bolting her in. Catra rushed to the door and clawed at it to try and break the lock, but she could make no mark on the steel. She switched to banging on it as loudly as she could. “Adora! Let me out of here! You can’t lock me up like this!”

“I can, there’s a whole section in your contract about it,” came Adora’s smooth voice from the other side. “I’m not any happier about the necessity of this than you are, believe me. You know I much prefer chains for keeping you confined.”

With that, silence settled between them. Catra struck the door a few more times, but her temporary burst of energy yielded to exhaustion quickly enough. She paced the room from end to end a dozen times, but no amount of obsessing would make the minutes creep by any faster. Finally she sank against one wall, defeated, Glimmer still whirling through her mind. The light dimmed to half-power, and Catra started to close her eyes. To her left, the door began unlocking, and Adora stepped back in. She was at her side quickly enough, kneeling down to scoop Catra up in her arms. “There, there, it’s going to be fine,” Adora said as she cradled her against her chest. “I had your room in the basement made up.”

They were moving now. She felt ridiculous, she was a grown woman being carried like a babe, but all Catra could do was grip at Adora’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me what it would be like? From this side?”

“Because there isn’t any way to describe it. All the pleasure you’ve ever felt pressed down to a minute? It’s far beyond that. Go ahead, try and describe it. Maybe you can write a guide for turnlings.”

“It’s like…like…good.”

“Points for succinctness,” Adora said as she stepped into the elevator and it began gliding downward. Catra shook her head.

“No, it’s—every good feeling, all at once. Pleasure, warmth, safety. A lifetime’s worth of good feelings in sixty seconds.”

“Hmm. That’s actually not a bad way to put it. But enough philosophizing, you have to sleep.”

Adora carried her down another corridor, and Catra was only dimly aware of them entering one of the rooms. “You were never ready to pass out after feeding with me,” she said as Adora sat her on the edge of a large bed. Adora carefully removed her bandeau and underwear, folding and placing them on an end table before picking up a set of pajamas.

“I didn’t think you needed reminding by now, but I’ve been at this for a very long time. Arms up.” Catra did so, slowly, and Adora worked her into a comfortable flannel top. A tap at her thigh made her stick her legs out straight to get the matching bottoms in place. “Don’t worry, you never stopped being delicious. But you’ll learn to temper your reaction eventually.”

She was picked up once more, brought to the other end of the bed, and laid gently in place. Adora pulled the covers over her and leaned down to press a single kiss to Catra’s forehead. “Rest, kitten. I’ll call Glimmer in for a debriefing once you’ve recovered.”

Catra heard her walking away, and then the door falling shut behind her as the lights went out. Sleep came easy, almost despite her wish to stay awake a little longer with her thoughts of Glimmer.

⁂

When Catra awoke, she expected, then feared, to have the pall of something like a hangover holding her in its grip. She hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since becoming Adora’s bank, but Glimmer’s blood had been every bit as intoxicating, if not more so.

But there was no pounding headache or dehydration, only a pleasant soreness laying over her body. Catra reached for the dimly-lit button on the nightstand and brought the lights up just enough to let her see. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes and stretching as the ghost of the evening’s pleasure washed over her: Glimmer, the crush of her lips, the way her skin felt under Catra’s fingers, her blood…Catra shook her head clear, expecting another head rush, but instead she only had a warm shiver work through her. She could think now that Glimmer’s blood wasn’t singing through her, she supposed.

 _Glimmer_. Catra hunched forward and brought her tail around to her lap. Her reaction was far stronger than she had expected, even considering Adora’s vague talk of compatibility. Lust and bloodlust mingled together in her mind even now, distinguishable only because she was far enough removed from the feeling to not be consumed by it. Was this just how vampires felt toward their banks? It was hard to fathom that switch flipping so fast. She hadn’t thought very much of Glimmer until her feeding, she seemed as good a bank as any, but…frustrating. Willful. No compunctions about cheating to win races with her bizarre magic.

Pretty.

She was rubbing her face when there came a knock at the door. Adora’s scent was obvious even before she spoke. “Good morning, Catra. May I come in?”

“It’s your building, you can do what you want.”

Adora slipped inside and strolled up to her with no great rush. Her hand carded through Catra’s hair to smooth it, and Catra preened under the attention. “Are you feeling better? Sober?” Adora asked. One quick nod. “Good. I’ve scheduled a meeting with Glimmer at noon to discuss things going forward.”

“Noon? Ugh…magicats don’t even like getting up before noon, let alone vampires.”

“Yes, well, she’s still diurnal, so we have to make some allowances. You haven’t had the chance to rub off on her yet. And it’s nearly eleven now, so you have an hour to get ready. Come to the small conference room on the second floor once you’ve cleaned yourself up. I left some clothes in the cabinet there.”

Catra glowered, but Adora only smiled and kissed the crown of her head before leaving. Adora knew she wasn’t a morning person, there was no reason this couldn’t have waited until later in the afternoon. Still, the prospect of seeing Glimmer spurred her on, and she stood to stretch and go to the room’s attached bath so she could make herself presentable. Catra looked down at her arm while the shower was warming up, where the streak of Glimmer’s now-dried blood colored her fur. She put it to her nose for a deep whiff and almost lost her balance when her head spun.

Adora was already in the meeting room when Catra arrived, having claimed the head of the table while looking over a report. One side of the table had a regular seat, while the other featured a larger, plush chair. Catra was about to claim the better offer when Adora snapped her fingers and pointed to the other seat, farther from the door. She went slinking around the table and sank into her assigned chair, gaze alternating between Adora and the empty space.

“Please stay on your side until—unless Glimmer confirms that she’d like to continue this arrangement,” Adora said, still not looking up from her work. Catra balked.

“Why wouldn’t she? You know how good it feels for them.”

“It’s been a while, I’m not sure if I remember correctly.”

There was a single quick rap on the door before Perfuma poked her head in. Catra’s fur stood on end, and she began baring her fangs before she could think better of it. “Oh, Miss Catra, good afternoon…ma’am, your twelve o’clock.”

“Yes, show her in.”

All of Catra’s lingering resentment at their receptionist evaporated when Glimmer stepped into the room, blinking a little to try to adjust to the low light. Warmth licked through her body, and she had to stop herself from purring as Glimmer sat down across from her. “Hey,” Catra said, trying to keep her voice casual despite hearing the tremulous beat of her heart.

Glimmer smiled a little and squared her shoulders, making the bandage on the crook of her neck stretch. Catra licked her lips. It was hidden for now, but that was _her_ mark, her small corner of Glimmer that no one else had. “Hey.”

“How are you feeling, dear?” Adora asked. “Any fatigue, lightheadedness, muscle weakness, itching at the puncture site, interactions with your magic? Please don’t try to soldier on for our sake, your health is the most important thing here.”

Catra sank in her chair at the thought that she might have hurt her, but Glimmer only shook her head. “It was a little hard to move right after, but after I slept I felt fine,” Glimmer said, and felt at her bandage. “I put this on, but it didn’t even hurt when I woke up.”

“There’s an analgesic element to the venom.” Adora’s voice was almost clipped in its speed, more suited to the boardroom upstairs than a meeting like this. Catra remembered it from the beginning of their arrangement, so businesslike for what was such an intimate relationship. “It’s good that you aren’t experiencing any obvious adverse effects, but I’ll still make an appointment for you at the clinic to be sure.”

“I had a couple of questions before we go any further?”

Adora raised an eyebrow, unused to being interrupted as she was, but only nodded to prompt her. Catra leaned forward to see if it was something she could answer. There was no arguing that Adora was more experienced with this, but some selfish part of her wanted to monopolize Glimmer’s attention. “Did you already have your session with Bow?”

Oh. It didn’t involve her. Catra folded her arms on the table and rested her cheek in her fur. “Yes, about an hour after your feeding. He did very well, why?”

“Did he, ah…have the same kind of reaction?”

A twinge of possessiveness tugged through Catra, an artifact from before she was turned. Only, it felt very fresh. She blinked and rubbed her temple. Adora was her sire now, not her vampire, and she wasn’t Adora’s bank any longer. It wasn’t as if she could go on indefinitely without sustenance. Still, the twinge persisted. Adora was shaking her head to answer Glimmer’s question. “The venom is intoxicating, but it doesn’t overpower one’s…preferences. I let him rest his head in my lap for a few minutes afterward before I sent him home, but that was all.”

Glimmer nodded and looked around the room, but couldn’t seem to divine what she was looking for. “What does this place _do_ , exactly? I couldn’t find much information online.”

Catra could only hope that Adora would keep the sales pitch brief, but the glint in her eye seemed to indicate otherwise. “We do a little bit of everything for the various nonhuman communities. Outreach, community development, employment assistance, legal aid and advocacy, all the sorts of things you’d expect a nonprofit to do. I supplied the original funding, but donations and the proceeds from some of our investments cover the budget now.”

“So…do I work for this company?”

Adora tapped one finger to her chin, and Catra squirmed in her seat. Was this really the time to talk shop? She wanted to know if Glimmer was willing to continue being her bank, not split hairs like this. “Without getting into the technicalities, you work for Etheria, the holding company that owns and operates Grayskull and Horde. All the subsidiaries operate out of this building. It wouldn’t do to use the nonprofit’s resources when I can pay you out of my own pocket. You can have an employee badge, if you like.”

Catra unsheathed one claw and scraped it over the table’s veneer. “Adora…”

“Patience, dear, Glimmer has questions. And stop scratching my table. Was that all?”

“I guess I wanted to know to see if there was anything I could do here,” Glimmer said. Catra hung on her words, but groaned inwardly when they kept up their conversation. “I don’t want to go back to college, but I don’t have anything else to fill my time.”

“I can think of a few ways,” Catra offered, and smirked at the blush it drew up on Glimmer’s cheeks. She stuck her tongue out despite Adora continuing on as if she hadn’t interjected.

“We shouldn’t have much trouble finding something for a magus to do, I can send you some information about our mentorship program.” Catra rankled and straightened up in her seat. She’d only just gotten Glimmer and Adora was already offering to divide her time. Her seat squeaked as she scooted it back and forth on the wheels to try and take the edge off the urge to go over the table and wrap herself around Glimmer. “Now, before Catra dies of anticipation, I think she has something she’d like to ask you.”

Oh, _now_ Adora turned the meeting over to her, right when it was her turn to say something embarrassing. Her sire’s lips twitched into a grin. Catra let out a long breath and looked Glimmer in the eye, her stomach tying itself in knots. Fine. She wasn’t a child, she could do this. “Glimmer, would…would you continue sharing the gift of your blood with me?” Catra asked. The heartbeat she had been listening to skipped, and Glimmer’s blood rushed through her. Catra tensed in her seat.

“Yes,” Glimmer said, then pressed her hands to her cheeks to try and hide the blush on her face. “And—what happened after? Is that part of what you’re asking?”

“Only if you both want it to,” Adora said. “I pulled you apart last night because you were blissed out of your minds and couldn’t think clearly. But the moments after feeding typically do…escalate, if the pair are compatible in that way.”

Glimmer’s voice was dry, scratchy, and a furious blush remained on her face when she put her hands down. “Escalate to what?”

“Speaking from experience with Catra, sex. The aggressive kind. She has a fondness for biting and scratching. But again, only if you so choose. You don’t have to be intimate at all beyond the feeding if you don’t want to be, in fact.”

Catra was trying to make her staring casual, but there was really no way to keep from betraying the way she was hanging on each little change in Glimmer’s expression, each shift in her posture. The silence that stretched out between them was an awful sort of torture, and having to wait it out would surely drive her mad. Finally, Glimmer smiled softly, and she met Catra’s gaze. “I wouldn’t mind that. Being close the rest of the time, I mean—oh!”

Even before she was finished speaking, Catra was around the table and at her side, silently seeking permission to join her in the seat. Glimmer shifted over to make room and let her clamber in with her, draping her legs across Glimmer’s lap and nuzzling into her side. Almost despite herself, a purr worked through her chest. Glimmer smiled and leaned into her, letting one arm work around her back, and laid her hand on Catra’s waist. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Catra said, and bumped her nose to Glimmer’s cheek. Her hand crept up to the bandage standing out against Glimmer’s skin. “Can I take this off?”

She nodded, and Catra pulled it away in one smooth motion. The twin fang marks stood in dark relief against the fair skin around it, and through the thin new tissue the smell of her blood was so very heady. She might have bitten Glimmer right then and there if she wasn’t sure they would have been pulled apart. Catra settled for planting a long kiss to the crook of Glimmer’s shoulder, and the hand on her waist tightened.

Adora chuckled under her breath. “I’m not sure if you truly understand what you’ve unleashed, she’s clingy even for a magicat. But so be it. I’m going to keep overseeing the feedings for now to make sure Catra stays in control, but you two can do as you please afterward. There’s only one thing left: would you like to be taken home again after the sessions, or shall I have a bed made up for you here?”

“Why don’t you stay with me after?” Catra asked, blurting it out before Glimmer could answer. Adora sighed and leaned back in her seat.

“You don’t need to rush through every stage of a relationship in a week, dear. I’ll refrain from the moving truck jokes, but only as a courtesy.”

“I actually didn’t really like sleeping alone last night, afterward. Every time I nearly fell asleep I’d reach my arm out and wake myself up. How big are the beds here?” Glimmer asked.

Catra grinned.

“Maybe _I_ don’t truly understand what I’ve unleashed…I saw that you two were compatible, but my goodness. Well. As you like. The first few feedings should be closer together than a regular schedule, so I’ll contact you in a day or two to let you know. Catra, can I trust you to see Glimmer out?”

“Mmhmm.” Her mouth was far too busy kissing at the ridge of Glimmer’s collarbone to do something as mundane as form words. Catra was distantly aware of Adora excusing herself and heading out, but her thoughts were entirely too focused elsewhere. There was so much of Glimmer to explore that she hardly knew where to start. Rather than choose, Catra curled in tighter, closing her eyes and letting Glimmer’s scent overwhelm her.

⁂

“Quit staring.”

“But it’s such a rare treat to see you so obviously nervous, most of the time all I get to see is bravado. This makes you seem…I suppose _human_ wouldn’t be the right word, would it?”

Adora laughed at her own joke and went back to pretending to read her book, still shooting the occasional glance over the pages. Catra wanted to stick her tongue out, but there was little that could sour her mood now, brimming with anticipation as she was. She leaned forward onto the empty stool in front of her seat, straining to try and hear the elevator at the far end of the hall. “And it’s nice to see you excited about something.”

Catra had no time for a response before she heard the chime of the elevator and the smooth glide of its opening doors, followed by a single set of footsteps. Of course she would never admit it, but a spate of nerves flooded through her then. Glimmer could change her mind about this whole arrangement in a trice and leave her high and dry. She had agreed to things awfully quickly, it wasn’t beyond belief to think she could reverse course just as fast. Catra’s ears drooped even as the footsteps grew closer. Perhaps it wasn’t even her, but Perfuma or Mermista with some message for Adora since the cell reception was terrible this deep in the building—

Glimmer poked her head into the room and knocked on the ajar door. “Is everything ready?” she asked, smiling at her vampire. All the tension that had wound Catra’s muscles tight melted away, replaced by relief, and she tried to play off her nervousness by leaning back and assuming a more casual pose. The excited upward curl of her tail belied her attempts, though.

“Yeah, come on in,” Catra said, and patted the stool for good measure. Adora marked her place and set her book down, attentive but unobtrusive at the side of the room where she could oversee things. Watch, as she liked to say. For a moment Catra was torn between wanting to kick Adora out—assuming that she could, which was a slim chance at best—and arranging the seats to offer her a better view. As it was, Glimmer sat in front of her, wearing the same vanishingly small outfit as the last time, and started to tie her hair up to keep it out of the way. Catra laid a hand on hers before she could do so. “I like the way it feels on my cheek.”

“You do? All right, then…” Glimmer shifted closer on the stool and tilted her head, making the muscle in the crook of shoulder stand out. Catra’s throat went dry. She fastened her hands on Glimmer’s hips, pressing tight at the soft skin there, and lightly tugged her closer, where it would be easier for her to fall back once the paralytic kicked in. Glimmer reached down to hold Catra’s thigh. “R-ready when you are.”

Catra inched forward and found her previous puncture points, laying her fangs against Glimmer’s skin to prime the venom. The smell of her sweat urged Catra on, drawing up the blinding need to bite and claim. She resisted long enough to make a careful, measured insertion at the original site, but the last threads of her restraint began to fray when the first drops of Glimmer’s blood rolled across her tongue. A purr worked through her chest at the sweet taste, so like a strawberry, yielding itself up at the peak of delectation.

If there was no hope of a vampire seeing heaven, then this had to be close enough. She drank slowly, both to keep from overwhelming herself and to keep from shocking Glimmer’s body. All the same, Catra paused every so often to measure Glimmer’s reactions and search for any sign of pain or distress in between gorging herself on the taste and scent. It crept through her body, strengthening her muscles and honing her senses, which threw Glimmer into even sharper relief: each twitch of her body and breathy moan that passed her lips, the weight of her as she leaned back, the brush of her hair over Catra’s cheek, the mingling scents of her sweat and arousal—

Her eyes opened halfway, the most surprise she could muster in her concentration. Catra wondered if it was simply the scent of Glimmer’s blood overwhelming her, every sort of pleasure blending into one, but it was distinct and unmistakable when she focused. One hand went wandering from Glimmer’s hip, teasing at the waistband of her underwear, and her human yielded up easily, eagerly. Catra forced some measure of restraint—she didn’t yet trust herself to play while feeding—and only sent her hand gliding over the fabric, a move Glimmer met with a long moan. Hard to mistake the slight wetness she could feel there. The heartbeat Catra was listening to skipped out of its low resting rate and began to rise, and the blood came to her tongue a bit quicker before she brushed her fangs over Glimmer’s skin and let her wounds close.

The blinding rush that had followed her first feeding was still there, but less intense now, manageable in all its headiness. She would have to mourn the loss of the first incredible high another time. For now, there were much more pressing matters demanding her attention. Glimmer stayed reclined into Catra’s chest, the venom extending her rush a little longer before it dissipated into her bloodstream. Her hands grasped weakly at Catra’s, trying to spur her into picking up where she left off, a request she was only too happy to oblige—but on her terms, and her schedule. Catra let her fingers drift to the inside of Glimmer’s thigh, making a careful inspection of the sensitive skin there. Glimmer shivered under the touch even as she radiated warmth, thrumming with bliss and her own latent magic. She tried once to coax Catra’s hand higher, shifting about on the stool, but Catra kept her own pace, and the only concession she made was to work her free hand beneath Glimmer’s bandeau and seize at one breast. Her human whined and shook in her arms. “Catra…”

“Yes?” she asked, whispering in a low voice beside Glimmer’s ear. Oh, there was no end of fun to be had here, she knew that. Catra’s ears pricked at the small sound of a nail scraping over a book cover, and her gaze shot to Adora, still in her seat nearby, still watching with a grin.

Her momentary lapse of focus cost her dearly. Glimmer pulled her hands free, straightened up, and twisted around on her stool to steal a kiss. Some of her movements were clumsy, made sluggish by the venom’s aftereffects, but she still managed to cup Catra’s cheeks in her hands and crash their lips together.

For a few short seconds it was only a kiss, deep and pressing, until the air around them began to pull tight. Catra’s fur stood on end as she tried to break away, but she and Glimmer were already glowing against the flash of darkness enveloping their bodies. There was a _snap_ in the air around them, a chill that felt unpleasantly like walking into a frigid room, and a spinning in her head as they reoriented and the feeding room around them returned to normal. Now, though, Catra was on her back, pressed to the floor with Glimmer straddling her. The look in her eyes was only too familiar—lust, lust for her, an overpowering, gnawing _need_ that couldn’t be set aside.

“You don’t do patience either, huh…”

Fuck what anyone said. _This_ was heaven.

Glimmer made short work of Catra’s clothes and her own, tossing everything aside before she dove back in. She licked and lavished Catra’s throat, tongue working along the sensitive fur there, until she arrived at the crook of her shoulder in a mirror of their previous position. Catra stretched out beneath her and reveled in the attention, exploring Glimmer’s legs and hips as she kissed and suckled and—

Bit, her teeth clamping down on Catra’s shoulder and making her start, her tail curling and her fur ruffling. It didn’t _hurt_ , and she doubted anyway that Glimmer could do enough to actually cause injury, but the shock still threw her. Catra knew she wasn’t doing it to hurt, though, but to imitate, to try and leave a mark of her own, and she tilted her head while grabbing at Glimmer’s legs to pull her closer. When she was satisfied with her work, Glimmer leaned back, only for Catra to push off from the floor and bring them both up to their feet. If she didn’t want to be patient, then Catra didn’t mean to demur when a much better option was right in front of her.

Glimmer was easy to move back to the wall and keep pressed against it with nowhere to go. Catra pulled her into a kiss of her own, bruising, claiming, until she tore away to move down to her neck. Each quick, hot breath Glimmer took made the skin there tighten and slacken in turn, but Catra left that too for the hard ridge of her collarbone, and then the swells of her breasts. She trapped one nipple between her teeth, winding her tongue this way and that until Glimmer was panting and gasping above her. A lovely blush had risen up on her cheeks, and the look in her eyes told Catra that she had her human in the palm of her hand.

But she could do better.

Her kisses trailed further down over Glimmer’s stomach and the crests of her hips, until Catra was on her knees, easing Glimmer’s legs apart and wrapping her arms around them. Oh yes, there was no mistaking that scent now…the bloodlust still dizzying her mind yielded, replaced by something simpler. Catra circled her clit with the tip of her tongue, putting taste to scent as Glimmer’s legs trembled around her. She couldn’t say whether she preferred the taste of her blood or her arousal, but Catra doubted she could ever get enough of either.

One hand wound into her hair, then a second, tightening around the strands to try and keep Catra close. As if she was going to _stop_. Still, Catra pressed in deeper, her nose brushing at a patch of dark violet hair as she flattened her tongue, exchanging a quick lash for a slow circuit to tease and taunt. The hands in her hair shook with impatience, but Catra wouldn’t be rushed. She was going to take her time and enjoy this.

The rhythm she fell into was easy to maintain, keeping the embers of Glimmer’s arousal stoked just enough for long stretches before kicking into gear and pulling her right to the edge, only to draw back and leave her whining in frustration. Each weak sound of protest made Catra smirk and try to string it out a little longer, until she wanted to throw Glimmer over into ecstasy. Her hands tightened on Glimmer’s thighs as she sped up, fervor mounting, following the jerky roll of Glimmer’s hips back and forth until her muscles drew tight and her voice cracked in her throat.

Catra eased back as she came down, wiping the fur around her chin dry while Glimmer slid slowly down the wall so that her shaking legs didn’t have to support her. All of her skin was flushed with afterglow, so much sweet blood ripe for the taking, while her eyes were glassed over with pleasure. She tugged weakly at Catra’s shoulder to pull her into a kiss, not a care for the arousal she must have tasted on Catra’s lips and tongue.

They both jumped when a pair of blankets fell over their shoulders. Glimmer colored in embarrassment at Adora scooping them up, but Catra merely relaxed into her arms. This was hardly the most compromising position Adora had ever seen her in, after all. “I can’t have you two passing out on the floor like this,” she said as Glimmer leaned across her to nestle against Catra’s chest. Catra reached out under her blanket to slowly stroke Glimmer’s back.

Her room in the basement had been cleaned and turned down, Catra saw. Adora set them both in the bed and drew the covers for them, promising to come back in the morning to see to them before slipping out. Glimmer immediately closed the distance between them again, latching onto Catra with an arm thrown over her hip. “Can I take care of you, too?” she asked, her voice already heavy with sleep.

At any other time she might have taken Glimmer up on her offer, but Catra was coming down from her rush as well, and she doubted she could even stay awake much longer. “I’m fine,” Catra said, pulling Glimmer closer, letting her human nuzzle at her chest. “More than fine.”

She could get used to this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to novella territory...
> 
> For the outfit change on the tail end of this chapter, it's essentially their clothes from Glimmer's imagine spot in the D&D episode of season 2 (Glimmer looks like she stepped out of _Bubblegum Crisis_ and Catra's a Bond villain).

“All right, let me make sure that all of this is in order. I don’t doubt that you two can find some way to keep yourselves occupied in the meantime.”

Adora didn’t bother looking up from the stack of papers in front of her when she addressed them, though Glimmer was sure that she had no problem seeing them as she looked over the forms. That was fine. They _did_ have a way of keeping themselves occupied, as it happened. One of Catra’s legs shifted underneath Glimmer, foot bouncing somewhat impatiently on the floor and moving her about by small degrees. The arm around her waist kept her in place, though—and that place was in Catra’s lap. When they weren’t at their day jobs and thought they could get away with it without chancing impropriety, it was her seat more often than not, especially when Adora was around. Maybe it was only Catra showing off, but Glimmer had already learned to associate their boss’s presence with almost more attention than she knew what to do with. That crossed wire was unexpected, if not completely unwelcome.

“Well?” Catra whispered into her ear, tightening her hold on Glimmer’s waist. “How should we keep ourselves occupied?”

There was a tickle at the side of her neck, as what felt suspiciously like kisses ghosted over the sensitive skin there. Glimmer squirmed a little, unable to move much but equally unable to pretend it had no effect on her. Some of the kisses drifted especially close to one of her bite marks, where the sensation became even stronger than usual, and an electric tingle went trickling down her spine until it settled at the base and spread down her legs, making her even more restive—

Adora straightened some papers on the table, more loudly than was necessary, to keep them from getting carried away. Both of them wilted under her gaze, appropriately chastened, before she looked down at her open folder. “Here we are, Glimmer’s one-month evaluation. Let’s have a look at what the doctor said…”

Glimmer squirmed a little more, though not out of stimulation. It felt strange to have someone else picking over her medical history, looking for any reason to cut her arrangement short. Catra, too, finally started to pay attention, so much so that one of her claws dug into Glimmer’s side. She made a small sound of discomfort, more to keep Catra from accidentally drawing blood and getting herself revved up, and the pressure disappeared.

“Your erythrocyte count looks good, aspiration and heart rate are still in their original ranges, no signs of anemia, your hematocrit is trending a little low but that’s normal…no real contraindications, that’s good. Medical separation is always difficult,” Adora said. Even though breathing did nothing for her anymore, Glimmer felt Catra sigh in relief under her. “So, the lifestyle section. You’re keeping up with the exercise regimen that Seahawk and Mermista put together for you?”

“Yep, half an hour of cardio every evening. And usually I’ll train a bit with Bow on alternate nights when he’s there.”

“Good, good.” Adora wrote something on one of the papers in the folder and flipped to the next page. “And how have you been handling the offset to your circadian rhythm? How late has Catra been keeping you up?”

“Why do you assume it’s me and not the other way around?” Catra asked in a huff. Adora twirled her pen all the way down her hand and back again.

“Because you need half as much sleep as she does, dear. Magicat tendency to doze notwithstanding. And please let Glimmer answer, this is _her_ review. You’re here as a courtesy.”

Glimmer shifted in her makeshift seat as her vampire and their boss exchanged a cool glance. It was difficult to puzzle out Catra and Adora’s relationship, or at least the twists and turns it took at the seeming drop of a hat. They never veered into being openly antagonistic, but Adora seemed to waver between keeping a tight leash and leaving Catra to her caprices. Catra, in turn, alternated from wanting to cut that leash to ribbons—and maybe draw some blood while she was at it—and wanting to curl up at Adora’s feet. Glimmer had never asked how long their previous arrangement had gone on, but it seemed long enough to have several facets. She cleared her throat in hopes of distracting them. “It was difficult at first, but I’ve been getting used to it,” Glimmer said. Adora nodded and made a note while Catra buried her nose and mouth against Glimmer’s shoulder, purring softly. “I don’t even need the alarms now. I’ll get up around three or four and go to bed right before dawn.”

“As long as you’re getting enough sleep. Eight hours is good, nine or ten is better. I have your receipts here from accounting, nothing about your diet seems all that concerning…did Catra hit upon a taste in your blood that she likes already?”

“Sort of? The basics are the same, but she has me try different candies to see if it makes my blood sweeter.”

Adora took a deep breath, and Catra’s purr turned into a low, possessive growl. “It doesn’t seem bitter to me, but she’s always had a sweet tooth. You can try some glacé cherries for that,” she said, and turned another page. “Last section. We like to make sure that our banks aren’t completely subsumed by their new jobs and can still carry on with their lives for the most part. How has the mentoring been? They put you with Frosta, didn’t they?”

“Right. I wasn’t sure how to compare my magic to an ice elemental’s powers, but we worked something out. And she likes being teleported, so there’s that. She’s—” Glimmer tried to think of a diplomatic way to say that her mentee was an excitable, if endearing, hellion with more control over her magic than sense about where to use it— “spirited.”

“I’m glad to hear that’s going well. That should be everything on my end, thank you,” Adora said as she shut the folder. Catra calmed and went back to purring. “I think I can go out on a limb here and say that Catra is perfectly fine with this continuing. And you, Glimmer? Are you interested in making this a more permanent arrangement, and if so, are there are any changes or modifications you’d like to make to your contract?”

Catra’s claws pressed at her again, and even without looking Glimmer could feel those bright, mismatched eyes burning with anticipation. “Ah…no, ma’am.”

Adora cocked her head, twirling her pen around her fingers, before she nodded and leaned back in her chair. “Catra, give us the room, please.”

“You said I could be here—”

“And now I’m saying to give us the room,” Adora repeated, her voice all edge. Catra shrank, and even Glimmer felt a chill despite the room’s comfortable temperature. “I’m not going to steal her away. I only want to talk to her.”

There was no arguing with Adora, Glimmer knew that much. She stood so Catra could clamber out of their chair, then sat back down, feeling the cool space left by her vampire. Catra hesitated once she was on her feet, one hand snapping to Glimmer’s arm and clutching at her until Adora prompted her once more. “ _Catra_.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be outside.”

She shuffled to the door and slipped out into the hallway. Adora pressed something on the underside of the conference table, and several dark lines emerged from the ceiling and walls to seal any gaps between the doors and their frame. “Soundproofing,” Adora said. Even with her warmer voice back, it was all too easy to remember how fast her mood could turn, flitting almost between two people in an instant. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that a vampire’s hearing is rather acute, and I wanted you to feel free to speak your mind. Go ahead, dear. I won’t repeat anything you don’t want me to. Is there something about the work that you find wanting?”

“No, it’s…it’s not that.”

“But it is something. Catra, then? I did tell you she can be a handful—”

“She’s so _frustrating_!”

Adora’s lips flattened to a grimace at being interrupted, then nodded once. “Go on.”

“What’s her deal, anyway? One second she can’t get enough cuddling, and then the next it’s like she wants nothing to do with me! It’d be one thing if it was a natural shift, I know everyone needs alone time, but she’ll get up in the middle of it for no reason to go sit on the other chair,” Glimmer said, letting her vexations pour out as fast as she could find words for them. “And she’ll always tease me, running her claws over my bite marks or finding some other way to get me riled up, but then she never wants to actually do anything about it once she’s gotten me in the mood, unless it’s right after her feeding. But then it’s only her taking care of me, she never lets me…uh…you know.”

It wasn’t as if Adora _didn’t_ know, she was still in the room for all of Catra’s feedings, but it felt strange to be so frank about it. Glimmer sank in her seat, twiddling her thumbs, until Adora broke out laughing. It wasn’t a polite, ladylike titter or even a chuckle, but full-on ugly laughing, graceless snorting and tears included, that had her pounding the table and leaving a large indent where her fist landed. Glimmer froze. How was she supposed to respond to this? Start laughing with her? In the end, she remained too shocked to do much of anything until Adora got a grip on herself.

“Oh, my goodness. I’m sorry dear, I wasn’t laughing at you. But that was, almost word for word, the kind of complaint Catra made when she started as my bank.” Adora wiped her eyes dry and tamped down on a broad smile. “I’m afraid I’ve been remiss in detailing some of the finer points of this life. To both of you. It’s been a long time since I’ve turned anyone, so I’m out of practice. But let me see if I can explain this.”

Adora looked around the room, then pulled a loose thread from her jacket sleeve and looped it through her pen’s clip so it was hanging in the air beneath her hand. “If you’ll forgive the rather crude visual, imagine for a moment that this pen is Catra, you’re the thread holding it up, and this point where they meet is your relationship. Now, if you were to say this whole thing isn’t for you—” Adora released one end of the string and let the pen clatter on the table— “well, you can imagine. You’re literally Catra’s lifeline now. Even with two weeks’ notice, there’s really nothing stopping you from quitting and leaving her starving. Of course I wouldn’t _let_ her starve, I’d find her another bank, but that kind of fear works below any rational thought. And this month was only supposed to be a trial to begin with. There was no real commitment beyond that. You could have easily walked in here at any time and quit. As you can see, she’s already quite attached to you…couple that with the fear of abandonment and I’m sure you can see how mentally difficult this is for her. Without overstepping her confidence, Catra isn’t the type to assume stability in her interpersonal relationships.”

Glimmer nodded. Admittedly she hadn’t gone out of her way to affirm her satisfaction with the way things were, and she supposed it was possible Catra had interpreted that as ambivalence, or even dissatisfaction, something to be waited out.

“There’s also the small issue of her desire for your blood and her desire for _you_ getting conflated, which isn’t helped by her mingling business with pleasure…and I suppose that I’m part of the problem, too,” Adora said, letting a trace of sorrow creep into her voice.

“You? She almost worships the ground you walk on.” _When she doesn’t look ready to go for your throat_ , Glimmer wanted to add, but thought better of it.

For a moment Adora looked almost vulnerable, but it must have been a trick of what little light shone into the room around the blackout curtains. “I filled too many roles for her at once, I think—lover, confidant, vampire, impromptu therapist when she needed it, her only friend—and turning her threw it all into disarray,” she said as she picked up her pen and cradled it in her hand. “It’s what she wanted, and we agreed to put off our romantic relationship while she adjusted, but pulling that support system out from under her wasn’t wise. Think of it like magic…change too much at once and everything starts to unravel.”

Glimmer pulled one leg up to her chest, then realized she was pushing her shoe into the leather seat of her chair. Adora didn’t seem to mind, or notice. She was idly clicking her pen, popping out the nib and drawing it back in. “The two of us are in a strange space right now,” she said. “Catra isn’t the best communicator, which doesn’t help. I think she worries that getting involved with you would make me angry, which just isn’t true. I can tell her that over and over, but you may have noticed that she can be stubborn.”

“Now that you mention it,” Glimmer said dryly. Adora chuckled.

“So throw all of that into someone wrestling with the biggest upheaval of her life and you get a perfect storm of mixed signals. Speaking from experience? Sit her down—with chains if necessary, she’s so very fond of chains—and have a clear, honest discussion about what you both want out of your relationship.”

Somehow that seemed easier said than done, especially when Catra was perfectly capable of pulling her apart like wet tissue paper, but it made sense. Glimmer put her leg down and stood. “All right. Clear, honest discussion. I can do that. Thanks, ma’am.”

“Glad to help.”

Adora pressed another button under the table and retracted the soundproofing around the doors. Glimmer got as far as the exit before she let go of the handle and turned around. “Just out of curiosity, what is it that _you_ want?”

“Me?” Adora asked. Her expression shifted from the cool mask she usually wore to deep thought and back again, all in the span of a few seconds. She took the loose thread from her demonstration and tied it in a knot around the clip of her pen. “It’s hard to find things to _want_ at my age. I want the two of you to figure out what would make you happy, and then pursue it. Don’t worry, I’m not the jealous type…and I’m only possessive of those who want to be possessed.”

Glimmer decided to make a quick exit before that thought could make her shiver.

⁂

It felt good to finally have her staff back in her hands, passively drawing in magical energy for her—and there was plenty of it in Adora’s building. Even walking through one of the corridors in the basement left Glimmer almost full to bursting, all before getting to the training room beside the gym.

Catra strolled alongside her with affected nonchalance, still shaking off the last vestiges of sleep. It hadn’t been easy to convince her to come along for a spar, but the sight of Glimmer changing into gym clothes had roused her to action, however reluctantly.

The training room was a large, empty space, closed in on all sides by padding on the walls and floor, with obstacles near the back that could be set up around the room. “You sure you wouldn’t rather do this with someone else?” Catra asked, raising one arm over her head to stretch. Despite actually wearing more than she did during their feedings, there was something about the way the fabric of the sports bra shifted against her fur that left Glimmer staring. “I was already stronger and faster than a human to begin with, it’s not even a contest now.”

Glimmer hooked one foot over her staff and tugged it upward to stretch her leg. “Actually, I was hoping we could talk. About…this. Us. What we want, so that we’re both on the same page.”

Catra’s tail shot straight up before curling against her back. “Adora put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Well, she gave me the idea, but—”

“Nope. Uh-uh. I came here to fight and ogle you in gym shorts, I’m not doing that right now.”

“Then when?”

“Come on, I want to see how well you hold up,” Catra said, completely ignoring her question. Glimmer sighed, then swallowed hard when Catra extended her claws. Even though they went right back in, the knowledge that they were there was sobering. “I won’t draw blood…not _much_ , anyway.”

Glimmer folded her arms and rooted herself in place, refusing to be cowed. For as much as Catra swung back and forth, she wouldn’t do any real harm to her food source, and Glimmer knew that. Catra growled in frustration as she started toward the far end of the room. “You want to talk, I won’t stop you. But I hope you can multitask.”

When she came to the edge of the space, Catra leapt up to the top of the wall padding and perched on the vanishingly thin edge she had available, tail swishing underneath her as she watched Glimmer move to the opposite side. “All right, sparring with a vampire,” she said under her breath, trying to keep her voice low enough that Catra wouldn’t hear. “Not one of my better ideas.”

“Sure wasn’t!” Catra called from across the room. Glimmer groaned. If nothing else, she might at least be able to wear Catra down enough to keep her in one place long enough for a real conversation. Glimmer rolled her shoulders and pulled in some energy around one hand. A cloud of starbursts trailed behind her fist as she shook it about, making a beacon that might give her a fighting chance. Oh, who was she kidding? If it didn’t end in under a minute she could count herself lucky. Catra hopped down from the wall padding. “Let’s go, then. One, two—”

She was off and running before _three_ , bounding across the room like a tiger bearing down on prey. Glimmer’s heart kicked in her chest. Vampires were fast, magicats were fast, and vampire magicats…she had only a precious few seconds to tug at her energy and snap herself behind Catra, closer to the middle of the room where she would have a little more time to work out a strategy. It wasn’t a subtle maneuver, and Catra must have predicted it with the way she immediately veered right and jumped onto the wall. She ran along the edge of the room until she dismounted on the opposite wall and came right back at her, fangs bared through every long leap.

Glimmer feinted right and dipped left at the last second, when Catra was already in the air and on a collision course she couldn’t alter. Her reflexes were good enough to track Glimmer’s movement, and the magic-wreathed fist coming up at her. It connected with her shoulder, but that wasn’t nearly enough to do anything. Catra twisted her body away from the strike, and in an instant her tail had wrapped around Glimmer’s staff to yank it from her hand.

There was something unfairly graceful about the way Catra finally landed, sliding across the floor and turning herself around to face her opponent at the same time. “Neat toy,” she said, and tossed the staff from one hand to the other. Glimmer ran at her, fist glowing again, but Catra merely stepped around her with speed that couldn’t be matched. “This is your focus, right?”

“Why won’t you just—talk to me?”

Glimmer leapt again, but at her staff this time. Catra raised it over her head, leaving only empty air for Glimmer to soar through. By the time she came down and went rolling, Catra was tapping at the jewel set on top of the staff, making it tremble slightly. “Yeah, that’s it. Even I can feel it when it’s this close.”

It was only when she was getting ready to push off from the floor again that Glimmer remembered it was unnecessary. She snapped against Catra, grabbing at her waist before she could react and stop the next teleport. They flashed across the room with Glimmer still holding tight. “Are you ready to talk yet?” Glimmer asked, then took them to the opposite end of the room.

“Why…ugh…” Catra went green at the disorientation of teleporting twice in quick succession. “Why are you pushing this so hard?”

They teleported again, despite Catra’s attempts to pry them apart. Glimmer fastened her fingers into the longer fur on Catra’s back, pressing as hard as she could to the cool body in front of her. “Because I want to know what _you_ want!”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

The air _snapped_ around them again. Catra scrambled to sink her claws into the walls when she saw that they were in the corner of the room, up against the ceiling. Her hands and feet shot into the brick around them, struggling to support their weight and keep them from tumbling to the floor. “What the hell? Put us back on the ground!”

“Not until—” Glimmer tried to tighten her grip on Catra, but gravity was unrelenting— “you tell me what you want this relationship to be!”

“Glimmer, seriously, stop playing around. You’ll get hurt if you fall this far,” Catra said, clenching her jaw with the effort of keeping them aloft. One hand started dragging down the wall.

“Why should you care? Half the time you want nothing to do with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Catra asked through a hiss. “That’s not true, why would you say that?”

“Then what do you _want_?”

“I don’t know!”

Catra’s claws started coming free, and one arm wrapped around Glimmer to try and twist them around. The air pulled tight over them before they snapped away from the ceiling, reappearing harmlessly on the floor. Catra looked frantically around when the light faded, then sank against Glimmer when she realized they weren’t at risk of falling any longer. “Don’t do that,” she muttered, and pulled Glimmer closer to her. “Don’t scare me like that.”

She was squeezing so tight that it almost hurt, but Glimmer didn’t care. Being latched onto for comfort was fine with her. Catra shook for a moment until she calmed and stilled, tracing one claw over Glimmer’s back as she came down. “Look, I know I…go back and forth or whatever…but I don’t have a good answer for you,” Catra said, lips brushing against one of her bite marks. “One minute I want to pin you down and the next I want Adora to do it to me. I don’t know. I’ve got too much going on in my head with getting turned, and you’re both in there, and it’s not fair to do what I’m doing, and—I don’t want to choose between you.”

“Shh, shh, it’s all right.” Glimmer stroked at Catra’s hair and let her rock them both from side to side. “It’s fine, Catra. Really. I think I managed to connect those dots. And it’s hard to blame you, just look at her.”

“I’m sorry.”

Glimmer sat Catra up straight and brushed some hair that had fallen in front of her face so she was free to cup her cheeks. “Listen. I know I stumbled into something, uh, _complicated_ , but I also know that I want you. All of you. And I know that a big part of you is Adora. So I’m not asking you to choose, okay? It’s not like I’m dead set against a little…sharing, if that’s what we decide to try out in the future.”

Her eyes went wide, growing from their usual vertical slits, but she had no chance to respond before the sound of polite applause cut their moment short. How Adora had managed to slip inside without either of them noticing, Glimmer would never know. Vampires, she reminded herself. She walked up to them slowly, a knowing smile creeping onto her face. Glimmer’s cheeks went red. “Well, look at you two, having an adult conversation. Hats off to whoever suggested that.”

“How long have you been there?” Catra asked as they got to their feet. Glimmer couldn’t fail to notice the hand Catra put on the small of her back, keeping her close.

“Long enough to be interested in what I heard,” she said, her voice laced with suggestion. Catra took a step closer to Glimmer, whose blush only became more furious. Adora put her hands up in conciliation. “Turnlings, always so headstrong…regardless of what I may or may not have heard, the two of you should take the time to enjoy being wrapped up in one another. Besides, the centuries have a way of turning you into the patient type.”

Catra’s hand drifted down to the waistband of Glimmer’s shorts, her thumb hooking into the fabric. “I know how you like to be kept waiting. So—maybe based on what you may have heard, there might be a discussion at some point. But not now. It just so happens that Glimmer and I have a date tomorrow night.”

Much as she wasn’t inclined to step into the many layers of the conversation the two vampires were having, Glimmer couldn’t help interjecting. “We do?”

“Yes? Because it’s been a month,” Catra said with a hollow bravado. The quick arch in her brows and fleeting pointed glance at Adora made it clear she wanted Glimmer to play along.

“Oh! Right, tomorrow night. I guess I was so keyed up from sparring that it slipped my mind.”

Adora smiled, a real smile that for once didn’t seem to have any trace of guile in it. “Far be it for me to intrude on the new couple. Enjoy your one-month jubilee, ladies,” she said, and slipped out of the room. Both of them relaxed at her absence.

Catra pulled Glimmer across what little distance remained between them and into a tight embrace. It was far and away better than teasing. “So,” Glimmer said, brushing her cheek against the fur on Catra’s shoulder, “what _are_ we doing tonight?”

“Uh…I’ll get back to you on that.”

Now it was Catra’s turn to be flustered. Glimmer eased back for enough room to kiss her cheek. “I’m looking forward to it.”

⁂

Glimmer had never felt quite so cool and stylish as right then, wearing the leather jacket she’d never had an occasion for, leaning against the archway into the park and flipping a coin under the light of a streetlamp. She’d thought of looking for a toothpick before leaving her apartment, but that seemed excessive.

“Gotta stand right under the light, huh?”

She started to whip around, but reined it back in time to make a more measured turn. It was fortunate that she already had a grip on herself, since Catra’s outfit was so wildly inappropriate to their plans that it was a challenge not to laugh. There was no rule disallowing a svelte black gown with matching shawl and heels in the park, but neither did it seem like anyone would rush to recommend it. “You know there’s no dress code for this park, right?” Glimmer asked, then bit at her lip to keep a straight face.

Catra stepped into the light from the streetlamp with only a slight look of discomfort. Catra sighed and shrugged. “This is the only date outfit I had on short notice, okay? I had to go to a lot of cocktail parties and theater shows when I was Adora’s arm candy. Besides, you definitely picked up the slack in the butch department,” she said, looking Glimmer up and down. The distance between them closed with another step, and Catra ran the backs of her fingers down Glimmer’s sleeve before taking her hand. “What did you do, ride in on your motorcycle?”

“I _wish_ I could afford a bike…no, Bow got me this jacket for my birthday and I never had a chance to wear it until now. Come on, the park’s right here.”

She already had Catra’s hand in hers, and Catra followed half a step behind Glimmer until she found her stride and kept pace. The lights lining the footpaths weren’t as strong as the streetlamps, freeing them from having to avoid the small circles of brightness scattered about. Glimmer bumped her hand against Catra’s side to feel the smooth, silky fabric there. “The dress does look good on you, though.”

“It looks even better on my bedroom floor.”

The night wasn’t very warm, and Catra’s hand was cool in hers, but Glimmer still felt a bead of sweat running down the nape of her neck. All month had been one long tease, or so it felt. She had to do _something_ to turn the tables, to show Catra that she could give as good as she got…and maybe give her vampire a taste of her own medicine. Glimmer squeezed her hand once. “Is that so?” she asked. “Play your cards right and I might leave it in one piece.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?”

Still, Catra moved a little closer as they walked. “Watch the big crack there,” she said, and steered Glimmer around a spot where the footpath’s pavement had been displaced by an errant root from a nearby tree. “Can’t believe they haven’t fixed that yet.”

“Do you come here often?” Glimmer asked. Catra’s tail swished over and wrapped loosely around her leg.

“Not as much as I used to, there’s always something to do at work. This past month is the first chance I’ve had in a while.” Catra held Glimmer’s hand up and flicked at the zipper on the sleeve of her jacket. “But I would come here when I was younger. Whenever they were bouncing me between foster homes or…before that…this was somewhere I could wind down. Maybe hide out for a few hours if I was in a bad mood. I heard people thought the place was haunted the summer when I kept to the tree tops.”

She chuckled at the memory, but lapsed into silence after that. There was something there, Glimmer knew that, but she also knew better than to poke at what seemed like a sore subject. Catra started to turn them from the main avenue and toward a forested side trail, but hesitated at the loom of blackness that swallowed up the path. “Humans don’t see very well in the dark, do you?”

Glimmer spun up some magic around her free hand as if she was winding up for a punch, but let it swirl around her fingers instead, leaving a small sphere of violet light around them. “Very sparkly,” Catra said, and led her on. She leaned in closer once they had left the main path behind. “So will you start glowing if I get you wound up?”

As if she hadn’t been taunting her all month to just that effect, Glimmer thought. She shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to try to find out.”

“Oh? Is that an invitation?”

Catra stopped and turned Glimmer toward her, planting her hands on the collar of Glimmer’s jacket to pull her closer. Their lips were a hair’s breadth from one another, so close that Glimmer would’ve had no trouble feeling her presence even without the light. No breaths rolled over her skin, and no sounds came from her vampire save for her fingers rolling the leather of her jacket.

“I think I’ve been inviting you for a while,” Glimmer said, her heart pounding. No doubt Catra heard it too, heard all the blood so close at hand. “You’ve _been_ free to try anything you want.”

“Maybe you should be more careful about what you let me do…especially when there’s so much of you to want.”

The first brush of Catra’s lips against hers was a thrum of warmth despite the coolness of her body, and her hands abandoned Glimmer’s jacket in favor of wrapping around her waist. Glimmer kissed back without hesitation, flitting her tongue at the spots where she knew Catra’s fangs were, just past her lips. The light in her hand flickered with her lack of focus, but what was there that she needed to see? Catra was _right there_ , having her fill of her, and much better to touch than to look at. Her legs started to weaken, pressure winding between them, when Catra broke away and left Glimmer leaning forward to try and recapture her lips. One hand came up and stroked across her cheek, two claws extended. Catra’s brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Is that a serious question?”

“This is different.”

Glimmer took Catra’s hand from her cheek and wove their fingers together. “Yes, I trust you. What’s this about?”

“I want to show you something, but…I’m still getting the kinks out, okay? Adora only started teaching it to me last week,” she said. Glimmer cocked an eyebrow. “Not like that! You know how vampires can fly?”

Glimmer was reminded of Adora showing up at her window that first night with no clear indication of how she _got_ to the third floor without a fire escape. “Vaguely?”

“Well, I’ve been practicing more after that stunt you pulled with teleporting us to the ceiling. Can’t really move yet, but I can go up and down. Hold on tight and close your eyes, okay?”

That was no great imposition. Glimmer snuffed her light and put her arms around Catra, one at her shoulder and the other at her waist, linking them behind Catra’s back and hoping that she wouldn’t go tumbling back to the ground. Catra held her for some extra support and went still, silent with concentration.

For a moment, nothing happened. Perhaps she wasn’t experienced enough to take someone along with her, Glimmer thought. She didn’t mind waiting, not when she was essentially hugging Catra, but her heart jumped when they started lifting slightly. Glimmer yelped and held tighter as her feet left the ground, keeping as still as she could for fear of causing a distraction, eyes still shut. The seconds slipped by, and for all Glimmer knew they might only have been a few inches off the ground. She rather hoped that was the case.

“You can go ahead and open your eyes. We’re about as far up as I can go, so try not to freak out.”

She was already dancing on that’s knife’s edge, but Glimmer opened her eyes all the same and lost what little breath she had. The forested section of the park was below them, and beyond it the lights of the city beyond gleamed and twinkled against the inky darkness of the night. All the stars, too, seemed closer, and the moon shone down on them, casting a dim light across the trees stretching out in front of them. “Catra…”

“Pretty cool, right?”

Catra turned around slowly, giving Glimmer a panorama of the cityscape in all its splendor. She could almost forget that they were suspended in the air until they started drifting down again, descending into the tree cover and touching down on solid ground. Even with the path securely beneath her feet, though, Glimmer stayed latched to Catra. Her blood was coursing with adrenaline, and Catra twitched with the effort of restraining herself when her food supply was so close at hand. “What’s the fastest way back to your place?” Glimmer asked.

The fastest route turned out to be continuing through the park to the far side and cutting across three blocks to Catra’s apartment, down the street from the Etheria building that loomed large despite being almost completely dark. Catra led Glimmer up to the second floor, mumbling something about the mess on the stairs, as if either of them could be bothered to care about that now.

Glimmer turned Catra toward her as soon as she kicked her heels off and ran her hands over Catra’s gown, hurriedly grabbing at the fabric until she found the zipper on one side. She dragged it down slowly, holding Catra’s other side to keep her steady, until a nervous twitch of her fingers made Catra bite back on a laugh. Glimmer stopped at once, wide-eyed even though there was very little to see in the darkened apartment. “Are you…ticklish?” she asked, her mouth curling into a smile.

“What? No!”

The dress fell away with one more tug on the zipper, leaving Catra’s sides and stomach free to torment. Glimmer dove in with abandon, prodding in the soft space above her hips until Catra wasn’t able to contain her laughter. She hunched forward and grabbed Glimmer’s jacket, reflexively trying to catch her breath even though she had no need of it. “Come on, I’m serious—stop that—I have claws!”

“And you’re going to keep them to yourself,” Glimmer said, slowing her hands enough for Catra to straighten up. Despite her veiled threat, Catra allowed herself to be walked backward into her apartment, all the way to the low bed in the back lit by a bar of light from a streetlamp. She landed on the sheets with a _whump_ , and had no time to react before Glimmer came down after and straddled her with another grin. “I’ve got your number now. You like to act tough, teasing me and pretending you’re so above it all, but deep down…I think you enjoy having someone else in charge for a while. Would you like that?”

Catra’s legs pressed together beneath her. She had more than enough strength to push Glimmer off, but all she did was look petulantly out the window. “So what if I would?” Catra asked. Glimmer peeled off her jacket and tossed it aside.

“So that means you’re going to listen to _my_ needs tonight,” Glimmer said, leaning down atop Catra and planting a kiss in the hollow of her throat. She ran her palm over one breast, rolling the nipple with the heel of her hand and getting a moan for her efforts. “And what I need is to see you enjoy yourself.”

Nothing in her seemed inclined to argue. Catra’s hands crept under Glimmer’s shirt, pushing it back until she finally rolled beside Catra and did away with the rest of her clothes. “All that strength and speed, and here you are,” Glimmer said, rolling Catra toward her with a hand resting on the nape of her neck. She dragged two fingers down the middle of Catra’s chest and over the firm tone of her stomach. “So much control, too. You can hear by heart beating right now, right? Even I can hear it. You could bite me right now, you’re in the perfect spot…but you won’t, will you?”

Catra had relaxed her cheek into Glimmer’s forearm beneath her, but lifted it slightly to shake her head. Glimmer pressed a fleeting kiss into her hair. “No, I know you won’t. Because I trust you. And I’m going to be right here beside you until you trust that I won’t abandon you—”

Clawed fingers pressed at her sides suddenly, making Glimmer stop in her tracks, but the points retracted after a moment. “I trust you,” Catra said quietly.

“Good. Now, I believe I was in the middle of finding some ticklish spots?”

Glimmer drew her hand over Catra’s stomach with a few twitches in her fingers, and Catra’s halfhearted attempts to keep from laughing failed quickly enough. She shook and laughed into Glimmer’s collarbone, holding tight to her all the while, until the fingers drifted a bit lower and her laughter broke into a long moan. “Hmm, not ticklish here?” Glimmer asked, creeping her hand down into the tuft of thicker fur between Catra’s legs as they slowly parted for her. She worked her fingers a little farther, and Catra trembled when Glimmer brushed over the stiff point of her clit. “I think I like this reaction even better…”

Her hand was slick with arousal soon enough, just from making a circuit of Catra’s sex and softly rubbing at the edges of her clit while she shivered and whimpered against Glimmer’s chest. Glimmer chanced to slip one finger into her, then a second when the first was so greedily received. She hooked them back and was nearly bit when she slowed her pace, but Catra managed to stop herself and nibble at her collarbone instead…barely. Teasing a vampire seemed like a risky game, but after a month of being on the receiving end, turnabout was fair play. “You’ve been winding me up all month and then letting me stew in it, did you think you weren’t going to pay for that?” Glimmer asked, suddenly kicking up her tempo. Whatever response Catra was putting together faltered as her focus slipped, with her hips snapping forward under the new rhythm.

Glimmer wasn’t going to let her off after a month of teasing that easily, though. Whenever Catra started drawing tight around her, pressing down on her fingers from all sides, Glimmer would let up, slowing almost to a stop to let Catra growl and whine as she came down, only to start again. “I’m not really into edging, but you started it,” Glimmer whispered, brushing her cheek along the ridge of Catra’s ear and making it twitch. She changed the angle of her hand so that her palm rested more fully against Catra’s clit, making her hiss when she started rocking it. “Of course, I did like the park tonight, so…”

The next time Catra started winding up, Glimmer didn’t slow down. She planted a desperate, bruising kiss on Glimmer’s lips as she came, shaking and shuddering enough to make the bed shift underneath them. A slew of curses burst out of her when they broke for air, and her aftershocks left her jerking here and there for several minutes. Glimmer waited for her, carefully drawing her fingers back and licking them clean before Catra latched tighter against her. “I learned from the best, but you’re a much worse tease than me,” Catra said, her voice shaking.

Glimmer took her hand from the nape of Catra’s neck and smoothed some hair that had come out of place from her thrashing. “Maybe you should think of that next time you want to wind me up. I don’t know, just a thought.”

“I hope this doesn’t lead to some kind of teasing brinksmanship or anything.”

“Do you think you’d win that?”

She chuckled, then slowly dislodged herself enough to lean back and look at Glimmer. “So, can I do something for you now? I’ve got a _lot_ of ideas for paying you back for that.”

Back to blustering already, Glimmer thought. She rolled onto her back and pulled Catra along with her, where she curled against Glimmer with an arm laid across her waist. “I’m sure you do. But we can stay like this for a while,” Glimmer said, feeling Catra’s tail flit at her hand. “Just like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you read the notes! That makes me happy.
> 
> So, fair notice: this is the end of the purely Glitra content. The next chapter will have me slapping a Glitradora tag on this bad boy. If that's not your bag, I totally understand if this is where you exit, no hard feelings, glad you enjoyed what you did.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, as promised, here's the Glitradora.

Catra didn’t dream anymore. She’d never had good ones anyway, so that aspect of her new reality had been something to look forward to, despite Adora’s soft cautioning that she might miss it. Now sleep passed in what felt like only a few moments.

That was fine. Her waking world was _much_ more interesting now.

Her eyes opened slowly, wincing a little from the thin bar of light that snuck in around the edge of her blackout curtains, and Catra arched her back while stretching only her legs, seeing as how her arms were occupied. Glimmer stirred against her but didn’t wake, mumbling under her breath and nestling tighter into Catra’s chest. She sighed and flicked at a lock of her hair, moving it so some of the sparkles that seemed to be embedded in it flickered in the darkness. Even though she knew it would wake her up, Catra couldn’t help squeezing Glimmer, putting just enough pressure on her to provoke some motion. Her breath rolled over Catra’s bare shoulder in a slow, steady rhythm. It seemed so ordinary, but sometimes she couldn’t help devoting a few minutes to marveling. Glimmer was essentially a prey species to her now and they both knew it, but she still slept by Catra’s side every day, uncaring of how easy it would be to drink her dry. She kissed the crown of Glimmer’s head, then growled in frustration when her phone began vibrating.

Catra smirked when she looked at the screen. Who else knew her sleep schedule so well? “Hey, Adora.”

“Good morning. Or afternoon, whatever you’ve taken to calling it. How are you doing on this bright, wretchedly cloudless day?”

She ran the tip of one claw on her foot against Glimmer’s thigh and felt her shudder. “All right. Why, want to come check up on me? Because I’m not wearing very much right now…”

Adora scoffed. “Knowing how you keep your room, I’d get caught up counting all the motes of dust you’ve let accumulate. It’s a wonder your girlfriend doesn’t mind,” she said. Catra felt a pang of…something at hearing her sire refer to Glimmer as her girlfriend, even if it was accurate enough. Pride, guilt, or some mix of the two, that had to be it. “Well, anyway. Today _is_ a checkup of sorts, you two have your six-month evaluation later. Five-thirty. Small conference room.”

“Seriously?” Catra shifted enough to work her tail free, and reluctantly let go of Glimmer to rub at her face. “It’s my day off, I just wanted to lay around. Wouldn’t you be satisfied if I put her on the phone and she told you how happy she is?”

“Oh, you know it takes me more than that to satisfy me. It wasn’t a request, kitten. Five-thirty.”

Catra let go of a breath she hadn’t been aware of taking. _Kitten_. It had been a while since she’d heard that, and the months had done nothing to dull the way it made her fur stand on end. Glimmer bumped into her side, and another pang ran through her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good girl.”

The line went dead without another word, and Catra let her head fall back onto her pillow. Eternity with someone who knew exactly what buttons to press to make her roll over was a daunting proposition. Glimmer finally roused, blinking to adjust her eyes to the darkened room. “Morning,” she said lazily, and nuzzled her face into Catra’s side. “How did you sleep?”

Catra sucked in another breath just to blow it out, then rolled Glimmer to the other side of the bed. She smothered Glimmer’s throat with kisses, trailing them up and down until her girlfriend was squirming and laughing. “Fine. Doing better now that I’ve got you in my clutches.”

“Oh no, whatever shall I do?” Glimmer asked, then stretched out to make her job easier. Catra was on the verge of taking her up on the offer when Glimmer drew back in and reached around for her phone on the nightstand, then grumbled and rolled off the bed. “Right, that was today…we actually have a meeting with Adora in like an hour, sorry. Rain check?”

She wasn’t getting out of this, obviously. “I’ll hold you to that.”

⁂

“I swear, there _are_ other meeting rooms in this building. Somehow I always end up booked into this one. Mermista probably does it on purpose.”

Catra propped her feet up on the conference table with a yawn, jostling Glimmer in her lap and making her slide even closer to keep her coffee steady, but put them back down when Adora glared. “Am I boring you, dear?”

“Do you really want to know? Seeing as how I can’t lie anymore and all?”

“Come on, be nice,” Glimmer said, and scratched at the soft spot under Catra’s chin to calm her. She purred, almost despite herself, and then lapsed into silence. Glimmer had figured out _that_ trick far too soon for her liking. “I guess if there’s an abridged version?”

“It seems like someone’s callous disregard for protocol is rubbing off on you…as you wish.” Adora flipped through the chart in front of her. “Medical, psych—all good. And you get a two percent pay bump at the six-month mark.”

“See, that was important.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Adora shuffled one paper out of order and brought it to the front. “Oh, and I almost forgot,” she said, in a tone that told Catra she hadn’t _really_ almost forgotten anything, “I normally wouldn’t mention this so soon, but I don’t know what conversations you two have had about it. Glimmer, you can’t be turned. Your slip magic would resist the venom and essentially rip your body apart in an effort to get away from what it thinks is a foreign contaminant. The small amounts you get during the feedings aren’t nearly enough to trigger a reaction, so that’s not a concern.”

Catra scratched gently at Glimmer’s back as she half-listened to Adora’s magic talk. That thought simply hadn’t occurred to her, they never had any such conversation, and now that she knew it wasn’t possible, there didn’t seem any point in thinking about it. She didn’t feel very inclined to think about their very different lifespans, either. “How do you know all that?” Glimmer asked. “I didn’t even know. It’s not easy to find information on slip magic.”

“I spoke with your mother last week. We move in some of the same circles, I must have mentioned that? It’s how you got the job in the first place…anyway. We had nice long chat—we always do when we run into one another—about how you’ve been settling in with your work. That’s when she mentioned it.” Adora picked up her favorite pen and started spinning it around her finger. “Just something to keep in mind.”

“Are we done?” Catra asked. “I have a rain check to call in.”

Glimmer’s heartbeat quickened, and both vampires in the room snapped toward her. Catra held her a bit tighter. “You’re awfully impatient for someone who has nothing but time. Fine, last item: Catra, your control’s improved considerably, so I’m comfortable signing off on unsupervised feeding sessions. I’ll still be nearby as a precaution, but you don’t need me in the room any longer. Have fun, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, all that.”

“Finally,” Catra said, but she sank in her seat all the same at the statement. It seemed normal on the surface to slowly detach from her sire, to leave the nest, but part of her still wanted some kind of tether. She couldn’t very well say that, though, not when Adora’s reaction would be to smirk and say what she _really_ wanted was a shorter leash. Even if Adora was inclined to indulge her—and there was no guarantee of that—she knew exactly how to leave her red under her fur. Nor was it fair to Glimmer to impose an extra set of eyes on what was an extremely private moment, much less ask for more, the way they used to be. Still, all Catra could do was lean her cheek into Glimmer’s shoulder, looking this way and that as she bit her tongue.

Glimmer had no such compunctions, though. She squeezed one of Catra’s hands and straightened up in their seat. “But…you could if that was something we wanted, right? For you to keep watching?” she asked. Catra’s ears pricked up, and Adora raised an eyebrow as she fiddled with her pen. It spun round and round her finger as she put together an answer, until she snatched it from empty space and held it tight.

“I didn’t realize how much you enjoyed having an audience. Yes, I could stick around. Is that what you want, dear?” Adora asked. Glimmer shifted on Catra’s lap, working from side to side, then nodded. Catra’s fur bristled as she picked up the merest hint of arousal in the air. It was faint, so faint that her already-enhanced senses strained to isolate it, but enough to tell that it was coming from right in front of her. “I see. Catra?”

If Glimmer was hiding some psychic talent, she really couldn’t have picked a better time to read Catra’s mind. Her tail flicked excitedly behind her seat at the prospect, betraying the cool expression she tried to affect. “Whatever she wants.”

“Mm, that’s not what I asked.” _Click_. _Click_. Adora worked that pen like her life depended on it. “Your comfort is important to me. What I asked is if you’d like me to stick around for your feeding sessions. No prevarications, kitten.”

Oh, that wasn’t fair. Catra shrank under her gaze, even more so when Glimmer looked sidelong at her and mouthed the word _kitten_ with an arched eyebrow. She would never hear the end of that. Her tail curled up behind her as her options dwindled down to the truth, and she pouted all the way through answering: “…yes.”

“Well then.” It really should have been illegal for Adora to look that satisfied with herself. _Click_. “I’m happy to keep an eye on things for as long as you’d like. If—and please forgive me if I’m misreading your request based on something I may or may not have heard several months ago—you only want an audience, and not more…active participation.”

The scent of Glimmer’s excitement strengthened to the point that regular vampires could have picked it up, and the slight curl of Adora’s smirk told Catra that it had. Before either of them could say anything, Adora stood and picked up all of her papers. “But that’s something for you two to discuss alone, I think. This place doesn’t actually run itself no matter how it seems, so I’m sure there’s some fire for me to put out somewhere. Do let me know whatever you decide before your session tomorrow, you can stay in here as long as you like.”

With that, Adora stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her. As soon as she was gone, Glimmer whirled toward Catra with the biggest grin on her face that Catra had ever seen. “I could have been calling you _kitten_ all this time?”

“You don’t really have the attitude to carry it off properly.” As pleasant as hearing Glimmer say it made her feel, it lacked some of the punch it had when Adora used it, making her feel small and lovingly protected. “Besides, if we’re talking about embarrassment, I can already smell how hot you are, and how much stronger it got when Adora dropped her offer.”

Catra fastened one hand on Glimmer’s thigh, pressing at the soft skin there and drifting upward. This meeting hadn’t been a waste of time after all. Glimmer trembled and put her coffee down, parting her legs slightly, and grabbed Catra’s shoulders as she leaned closer. “I get it, believe me,” Catra whispered into her ear. “I’m not missing anything from you, but Adora…she’s something else. And it wasn’t easy to quit her cold turkey. No one could blame you for being interested. I sure don’t. Were you reading my mind or something when you asked if she’d stick around?”

“It’s not—” Glimmer shook when Catra rested her palm in the middle of her shorts, just barely applying pressure— “It’s not hard to see the way you look at each other. And I know what you two used to have, but you never talk about it. Tell me?”

Where to even begin, Catra thought. She relaxed her hand, but Glimmer’s whine of protest made her start up again. The wisdom of winding her up while talking about this was debatable to Catra, but it was hard to resist the sight of her cheeks growing red and the way she trembled in her lap. “You really want to know all the details? I don’t want to get you jealous.”

“Try me…”

“You asked for it.” Catra put her arm around Glimmer’s waist and held her close, nuzzling in and kissing at Glimmer’s throat. She was so very warm, blood singing beneath her skin, breathing faster as her scent filled the room. “Adora, she’s…intense. I wouldn’t call her demanding, you kind of end up wanting to go along with whatever she says, but she’s definitely in control the whole time. There’s a lot of experience she’s bringing to the table and she really isn’t shy about using it.”

She let that thought run through Glimmer’s head for a moment while she rocked her hips against Catra’s hand. The worries about jealousy faded somewhat. “Plus she knows exactly where our limits are. Mine from experience, yours from…well, spectating. So you’re going to be riding that line for as long as she wants you to. And if you try to hurry things along, that’s more time you end up waiting.”

“Speaking from experience?” Glimmer asked. She tried to snicker, only for it to turn into a gasp when Catra pressed at her a little more firmly. Her back arched, and all she could get out was a quick hiss through her teeth.

“ _As I was saying_ , if you think I can be a tease, then Adora might actually drive you crazy. Even right after she fed, when the venom was fresh and I was super sensitive, she was so good at getting me right to the edge and keeping me there, a few times for close to an hour. She can wind you so tight that you think you’re going to break,” Catra said, trailing off as she remembered the feeling. Her tail swished idly behind her, and Glimmer ran a hand into Catra’s hair. Glimmer’s heart was absolutely pounding in her chest, and had Catra’s still been beating it would have been much the same. “But you won’t. Adora can act smug and arrogant, and she’ll chain you up and edge you until you’re shaking and sobbing into her chest, but…she’s protective, afterward. She’d keep me in her lap with a bottle of water and hold me until I calmed down, and she’s got about the comfiest bed you can imagine. So, yeah. I could be so sensitive that it could feel like torture, and she’d relish in that, but I never turned her down when she offered. I guess that’s the best way I can put it.”

Her best way of putting it had Glimmer panting, glassy-eyed, trembling against the hand Catra still had between her legs. Catra ran her tongue over her fangs, trying to stay composed enough to remember that she wasn’t feeding for another day, even as she weighed the benefits of breaking their schedule. She shook her head clear and drew back as Glimmer looked at her. “She’d chain you up?”

“Like I said, Adora likes to be in control. And I didn’t hate it. There’s something about giving everything up for a while, just…letting go with someone you trust to take care of you.”

Glimmer nodded slowly, still pushing on Catra’s hand but now absorbed in thought. Maybe she’d shared more than was wise, Catra thought. The _torture_ comment might have been pushing it a bit. And it had been impossible to mask her mix of eagerness and nostalgia while reminiscing, betraying the obvious feelings she still harbored. Catra nosed at Glimmer’s shoulder. “Hey. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

That was Glimmer’s pressure valve more than anything, one she whipped out whenever Catra was being more taciturn than usual, but there was no reason it couldn’t be turned around when need be. “I’m enjoying the vivid picture you’ve been painting,” Glimmer said, then laughed as best she could before it devolved into a moan. “And your hand…”

Catra took it away, making Glimmer pout. “Focus for a minute, I want you to have a clear head. Assuming that Adora’s tastes haven’t changed in the past six months, what’re your thoughts about everything I told you? I know it’s a lot to take in.”

The blush on her cheeks was rather telling. “ _Intense_ seems like the right word, but if I avoided anything that seemed out of the ordinary, I wouldn’t have met you,” Glimmer said, letting go of Catra’s hair to hold onto her shoulder. She canted her hips from side to side and stared down into her lap for a moment. “I’d be interested in sort of a test run tomorrow night? Only if you want to, of course.”

She shrugged her free shoulder. “If you’re up for it.”

Glimmer was on the verge of moving onto her next thought when she pulled back and shifted around so that she was straddling Catra. “But I asked you. _No prevarications, kitten_.”

Her most serious pout broke into a laugh, and Catra wasn’t far behind. “You need some practice with that, you know?”

“Okay, so I’m not exactly intimidating. Seriously, though: do you want to do this? Yes or no. I won’t be upset if you say no, I promise.”

This would be so much easier if neither of them could lie, Catra thought. She nodded, slowly, then grinned. “Yeah, I want to. I _really_ want to.”

Glimmer’s lips were hungry and claiming against her own, and the steady _thrum_ of her heart took them backward a few minutes. She leaned back, looking a little dazed, and pressed her legs into Catra’s. “Of course, that doesn’t help the fact that you’ve got me all worked up now…”

Catra reached around her and tapped her nails across Glimmer’s back, a hair shy of the pressure needed to get through her jacket. “I happen to know that this table is very sturdy,” she said. Glimmer bit her lip as she drifted forward again. “And we can stay here for as long as we want.”

“Mmhmm…”

⁂

“This is fancy.”

Catra shrugged as she rapped on the door to Adora’s penthouse. “I guess. If you like the whole ‘living in a museum’ thing. I used to want to knock something off its shelf just because there was so much there.”

“Did you?”

She shook her head. A set of footsteps on the other side of the door tracked through the apartment and stopped when they were immediately on the other side. They still had to wait, if only for some taste for drama. Finally Adora slowly opened the door with a hint of surprise on her face. She was wrapped up in one of her bathrobes, hair still damp and clinging to her neck despite her attempts to push it back. “Glimmer. Catra. You’re not late.”

“Sorry?” Glimmer asked, looking back at Catra for clarification.

“ _Someone_ never made a habit of punctuality, so it’s nice to see that you’re rubbing off on her,” Adora said as she took a step back and flicked a light switch. “Please, come in, make yourselves comfortable while I finish up. There’s a bottle of Heidsieck in the wine rack if you’d like a drink.”

Glimmer took a step into the apartment, only for Catra to seize her from behind and pull her in against her chest. “Too fancy for me, I’ll hold out for something…sweeter.”

“Yes, yes, I know you’re hungry. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Adora slipped deeper into her apartment as they stepped inside and Catra shut the door behind her. Glimmer _oohed_ and _aahed_ at the upscale décor, hurrying to the nearest shelf to inspect a row of old coins on display. Catra glanced over Glimmer’s shoulder to look. “I think she fished those out from between the couch cushions,” Catra said dryly.

“You don’t think this is cool?”

“It’s money, what good does it do anyone if it’s under glass like that and only worth anything in a place that doesn’t exist any longer? Besides, I’ve seen all of this stuff before. There’s only so much new old junk she can get.”

Catra tugged on Glimmer’s wrist until she followed her down the hall, toward the room they used to use for their feedings. It felt much the same as it did the first time Catra walked in, closed in by pale green walls with thick metal hooks mounted at several heights at regular intervals, as well as a few on the ceiling. The air was charged and swirling with kicked-up dust from a recent vacuuming. “Aww, she cleaned for us,” Catra said. Glimmer nodded stiffly beside her, relaxing only when Catra slid an arm around her waist. “You okay?”

“I’m a little nervous…not about the feeding, but, you know, the rest…”

Glimmer’s body slackened further in Catra’s sidelong embrace. “Hey. It’s okay if you changed your mind. I won’t be mad, Adora won’t be mad. I really doubt she’s been sitting around here like a nun for the past six months. Should I tell her that we aren’t—”

“No! No, I still want to do this,” Glimmer said firmly, taking a step out of Catra’s grasp and moving further into the room. Catra followed, hovering close behind her. The faint welling of arousal in her scent made her interest clear, even while her heart was thumping. “But I’m nervous.”

“Well, what’s excitement without a little fear?”

Both of them jumped and turned to the door, where Adora had reappeared. Catra flicked at one of her ears. Adora was quiet, but not so silent that she shouldn’t have heard her. She had fixed most of her hair into a tight bun, leaving a little loose at the sides, and had changed into a smart black suit and white shirt left unbuttoned near the collar. Lots of effort for something she was going to be taking off soon, but every inch the picture of someone in charge, Catra thought. Her own burgundy blouse and Glimmer’s leather jacket seemed insufficient and ungainly in comparison, where only a few moments ago they had been perfectly adequate for a social call.

Adora stepped into the room and left the door open a crack behind her. “But really, you have nothing to worry about, dear. Only say the word if you feel overwhelmed and everything stops. Ah, you should pick that word, if you haven’t already. Catra’s is _red_ , if you’d like to use that.” Glimmer nodded. “Wonderful. Let me get the cushions out and we can begin.”

She stepped over to a closet in the corner while Catra and Glimmer started pulling off their clothes for a cleaner feeding. Catra tossed her shirt and pants in the corner, while Glimmer folded each piece of her outfit and set it out of the way. The only article of clothing between them was Glimmer’s panties by the time Adora had fished out the cushions she wanted, tucking them under one arm while the other cradled a black half-cylinder that she set under one of the hooks mounted into the wall. “And the sybian is…?” Catra asked.

“For later.” Adora placed the two cushions down in the middle of the room and invited them to sit. She took half a step back to let Glimmer take her place, then knelt down beside her. “Now, I know the kind of touch that Catra likes, dear, and I have an idea from seeing the two of you after your feedings, but I want to cover all my bases. May I touch you?”

Glimmer hesitated for a moment to reach back for Catra’s hand, which squeezed gently. “Sure, whatever you want.”

Adora’s gentle smile faltered. “What I want is to make sure both of you are as comfortable as I can make you. It’s perfectly all right if you’d rather I didn’t, I can always hew back to Catra. Worry about what _you_ want before what I want. It’s hard to _want_ much at my age, anyway. Now then, with that in mind, may I touch you?” she asked again. Glimmer nodded quickly, then leaned back into Catra’s chest as Adora shifted closer to rest a hand on her cheek. “Here? Or here?”

Catra watched with an odd, if not unpleasant, tingle in her chest as Adora sussed out everywhere she was allowed to touch with her roaming hands—Glimmer’s cheeks, her throat, her arms and hands, and on and on. She was working the inside of her cheek with her teeth by the time Adora slid her hand slowly between Glimmer’s legs, and both of them sucked in a breath. “And here?”

“Yes…”

Adora shifted her hand and rested it on Glimmer’s thigh. “Good. Now, Catra looks about ready to keel over from thirst, so we probably shouldn’t keep her waiting any longer, hmm? She’s going to be doing plenty of waiting soon enough, after all.” The tip of one of her fangs showed through her grin. “Go on, don’t refrain on my account.”

“You already ate?” Catra asked.

“Last night.”

Catra nodded, then wrapped her arms around Glimmer’s body and tugged her a little closer, bringing her halfway onto her own cushion. Glimmer started to cock her head, but Adora reached over to straighten her neck and tilt her entire torso instead. “You won’t be sore in the morning this way,” she said.

Adora ran her hand up to Catra’s where it sat on Glimmer’s hip, and Catra reflexively threaded their fingers together as she bared her fangs. She sank them in slowly, piercing fresh skin in the crook of Glimmer’s shoulder, and the blood flowed easily with the way Glimmer’s heart was thumping. She drank down the ichor, sweet and rich and laced with just enough adrenaline to leave a faint bitter tinge, while Glimmer relaxed totally into her embrace. Her heart slowed somewhat as blood left her system. “There you go, nice and steady, no need to rush,” Adora said in little more than a whisper. She leaned in so close that both of them shivered under the strength of her presence, then smiled. “You should do this in front of a mirror sometime, she’s making the most gorgeous faces right now…careful, don’t drain the poor girl.”

There was some part of her that always wanted to, to drink herself sick on Glimmer’s blood, but she was satisfied. Catra let the punctures close and lapped up the last of it while Glimmer was still warm and on this side of consciousness, kissing at the sensitive skin while her venom began to dissipate. She held tight as Glimmer started coming down, trembling once from sensory overload. “Aren’t you just darling,” Adora said, sliding the backs of her fingers down Glimmer’s cheek. “I always sit behind you two, so I never saw how your expression changes when you’re in the middle of things. How do you two feel?”

“I’m flying,” Catra said, and licked at her lips. Glimmer nodded in agreement, and Catra nudged at her side. “Still want to play?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, far be it from me to deny you.” Adora stood and returned to the room’s closet, hanging up her jacket to expose her suspenders and rolling up her sleeves before rooting around for something. While they had a moment to themselves, Glimmer turned halfway back to Catra and kissed her cheek.

“Thank you.”

“Oh no, thank _you_.”

Something clattered to the floor in the closet, and Adora swore in a dead language Catra didn’t recognize. Glimmer leaned over to try and get a better view. “What is she getting?”

“Frustrated, by the sound of it.”

“Here it is!”

Adora took a step back and whirled around with a triumphant flair, holding a length of heavy chain with a padded shackle at each end. Glimmer tensed, and Catra rocked her hips against her cushion. “You’re going to tie us up?” Glimmer asked.

“I’m not going to tie _you_ up, not without a long discussion about what specifically you would and wouldn’t enjoy,” Adora said as she stepped over to the sybian she’d placed against the wall earlier. “I’m going to tie Catra up, because I know her limits and what she enjoys. Right here, kitten.”

She lingered for a moment to kiss Glimmer once, then stood to go to where Adora indicated. “You upgraded,” Catra said with a nod at the chain.

“I needed something a bit more durable. Down to your knees and arms up, please.”

Catra did so, simultaneously shrinking from, and enjoying, the way Glimmer was watching her. It felt like a transgression of every moment when she presented herself as cool and in control, to submit without a word when Glimmer was used to seeing her take charge—or at least make Glimmer earn it when she was holding the reins. Still, the idea of playing the brat to Adora’s domme never even crossed her mind. She rested on the sybian, made of some kind of firm foam covered in leather with a bit of give, as Adora closed the shackles over her wrists and put one link in the chain through the hook in the wall. It pulled her up just enough that she couldn’t grind against the surface. Adora smiled as she tried and failed to pull down enough to get her clit against it. “Don’t bother, I had this custom-made for your height. You can get close, very close…but you’ll never reach it.”

“So you’re just straight-up evil now?”

Adora put her hand over her heart in mock affront, then let her eyes run red for a moment. “Evil would be not involving you at all and making a show of despoiling your girlfriend. And we’re not going to do that, are we, Glimmer?”

She stepped over to the cushions and took Glimmer’s hand to lead her to the side of the room along with both cushions. Catra leaned forward to steal a kiss, only to have Adora push her back. She rattled her chains in protest. “Are you okay?” Glimmer asked, settling on the cushion Adora had put in front of Catra, who nodded.

“I left her legs unbound, she can stand up if it’s too much,” Adora said as she knelt behind Glimmer. “And her tail is free, if she really can’t resist touching herself…but I don’t think she’ll do that. Will you, kitten?”

Catra pursed her lips, all too aware that Adora had consciously taken her place at Glimmer’s back, but only shook her head. Between the blood and the familiar haze of turning control over to Adora, there wasn’t any thought of resistance left in her. “No.”

“Good. And just to prove I’m not evil, we’ll start with you before you pull that hook out of its stud and make a mess of my wall. One thing first.” Adora brought Glimmer’s hand up to kiss her fingers, one fang brushing over her skin. “May I try a drop?”

Both of them froze for a moment. Glimmer opened her mouth to respond, but only nodded. Adora looked at Catra next. It felt strange to have some kind of power, however momentary, over her sire. Strange, if not unwelcome. Well. If Adora could be respectful, then she could be magnanimous. “Just a drop,” Catra said.

“Of course.” Adora pricked the skin near the base of Glimmer’s thumb, and the scent of her blood struck Catra like a slap. It made her pull forward, watching with razor-sharp focus as Adora let a single drop bead up in Glimmer’s palm before kissing it away and sealing the puncture with her venom in one fell swoop. Her head pitched back, swiping her tongue over her lips to lick them clean. “You were right, she _is_ sweet, even for a magus. Now then.”

Glimmer let Adora take her hand and guide her fingers up Catra’s thigh, muscle tensing wherever they disturbed her fur. Adora kept Glimmer’s touch light, brushing over only the tips of her fur, then pulling back when Catra pressed forward to try and get more. “I don’t doubt that you keep her happy, but I know Catra isn’t the most communicative. So I’m going to show you something I _know_ she likes. There’s some longer fur, right around…here.”

Adora took her hand away in favor of pressing at Glimmer’s hips, leaving Glimmer to brush at the delicate fur between Catra’s legs on her own. A long, low purr worked out of her, and Glimmer’s eyes widened. “Little circles right there, you’ve got it. See how you barely have to touch her? Of course, it’s not quite enough to finish the job, but I think she can take that for a little while longer,” Adora said with a wicked grin. Catra pouted. “What? I’m not _entirely_ evil, you’ll come. When I say so. Now, if you put a little pressure here for a moment…”

The pad of Glimmer’s finger pressed to her clit, and Catra snapped her hips forward to seek out more stimulation. Glimmer seemed inclined to offer it at first, but then drew back at Adora’s prompting. “Ah, ah. Be a good girl and stay still. As you were, dear.”

Glimmer, unfortunately, proved a very quick study. Without the venom to cloud her thoughts, she was able to keep up a good rhythm, alternating between brushing at Catra’s fur just enough to keep the embers of her arousal stoked and applying more direct pressure, backing off when it was almost enough. By the third time she didn’t even need Adora to prompt her. In a clearer state of mind, she might have worried about how much teasing she’d get in the future; as it was, the only thought left in Catra’s head was the pleasure drawing her body tight, pulling her so thin that it wouldn’t matter soon how little stimulation she got, she was going to—

“That should be enough.”

Catra clenched her jaw when Glimmer pulled away, so suddenly that her fangs almost pierced her lower lip. The burn between her legs languished and floundered, sputtering without anywhere to go as she watched Adora wrap Glimmer in her arms, two fingers trailing the length of her collarbone while her other hand ran down Glimmer’s stomach. “Didn’t she do such a good job, Catra? Don’t you think she deserves a reward?” Adora asked, and ran her thumb under the waistband of Glimmer’s panties.

“Maybe once she _finishes_ it…”

“No need to be impatient, kitten.” Adora kissed at the soft space below Glimmer’s ear as her hand crept further down, with only the unsteady cadence of Glimmer’s breathing to make her reactions plain. A light tremble in her legs added to the picture that Catra drank in with half-lidded eyes, watching each stretch of her panties where Adora’s fingers worked against the fabric. As far as torturous waiting went, this wasn’t the worst way to fill the downtime.

Catra tried twice to lower herself enough to sit and grind out the orgasm that sat tauntingly out of reach, but her arms would only stretch enough to offer the barest suggestion of feeling. She hissed and whimpered, tears stinging at her eyes as the arousal slowly ebbed out of her, but it did her no good. All she could do was wait and watch as Adora ran her fangs slowly over the crook of Glimmer’s shoulder, teasing, almost threatening, which made her tug hard on the shackles in actual protest. Adora pulled away with a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ve had my fill,” she said, and quickened her hand against Glimmer.

It didn’t take much more to make her fall apart, and Catra started when Glimmer leaned forward and stole a long, needful kiss, cupping her cheeks and almost moaning into her mouth while Adora coaxed the orgasm out of her. Catra kissed her back greedily, pulling against her chains to reach Glimmer, only parting when she slumped in Adora’s grip, utterly spent. Her exertion made the scent of her arousal even sharper, and Catra was on the verge of letting it get her drunk while Adora set Glimmer gently on the cushions beside her. “And to think you were ever worried that she didn’t like you,” Adora said, nodding down at Glimmer while she inspected the sticky sheen on two of her fingers. “Well. You’ve been very patient, I’ll chalk that up to her positive influence. Glimmer, do you think Catra’s been good, waiting all this time?”

She reached over and took Catra’s leg in her hand, squeezing weakly as she nodded. Adora could have gotten assent to just about anything while Glimmer was still soaring like this, Catra thought. But she didn’t see any reason to argue. Adora nodded and shifted closer. “How do your wrists feel? Any coldness or numbness?” she asked. It was largely a moot question now that Catra was a vampire, but the habit of checking in was still there. She shook her head, and Adora slowly put her fingers against Catra’s lips until they parted. The scent of Glimmer right beneath her nose made her shiver, almost as much as Adora’s free hand skirting down her body. “Nice and clean, please.”

Adora was as durable as her, and there was no need to keep her fangs from grazing any skin as Catra licked away every last drop. At first Adora only teased, brushing lightly at her fur while Catra’s tongue worked her over, until she dropped the pretense and pressed more firmly, winding her fingers in quick, dizzying circles. All the tension that had been left to simmer started boiling over again, drawing every muscle tight. “Just like old times, hmm?” she asked. Catra nodded, the only response she could muster between her scattered thoughts and the fingers still pressed to her tongue. “You always tense up exactly the same way when you’re close. Go on, no teasing this time, come. Come for me.”

There were no thoughts of resistance left in her. Catra bucked her hips into Adora’s hand as the fingers withdrew from her mouth, rattling the chains as it finally tore through her. Jolts of pleasure arced this way and that in her body, jumping from nerve to nerve until every last one had been run ragged. Everything in her went slack at once, leaving her hanging loosely from the wall until a random spasm would make her arms or legs shake. Adora produced a key from her pocket to unlock the shackles, then sat Catra against the wall beside Glimmer as she gave her wrists a quick once-over. “Good girl,” Adora said as she stood up. “Very good. Wait there for a moment.”

She was gone and back in the span of one long blink, propping Glimmer up and pressing a bottle of water into her hands. “Here, drink a little. You did so well, did you know that? Both of you.” Glimmer nodded again after a sip of the water and slumped into Catra’s side to yawn, making Catra do the same. “It's almost dawn, isn’t it…all right, let’s get you two to bed.”

Adora scooped them both up, one in each arm, and carried them out of the room. Catra rested against her shoulder as Glimmer sought out her hand, leaving her tied up with both of them by the time they came to Adora’s room. She set Catra down first in the middle of her bed, then Glimmer at her side, where she immediately shifted closer and tangled them together. There was some dim awareness of Adora changing out of her shirt and slacks in favor of some nightclothes, and then a soft pressure on the other side of the bed as she laid down. Catra wound one arm over Glimmer, curled her tail around Adora’s wrist behind her, and closed her eyes.

⁂

Glimmer woke up slowly on what had to be the softest bed she had ever slept on, looking blearily at a sliver of light peeking over the edge of a blackout curtain. The unfamiliar surroundings gave her pause for a moment, until her memory started coming back to her. This must have been Adora’s apartment. It was certainly a larger space than Catra’s bedroom, clean almost to the point of being spotless. An arm was laid over her waist, and the familiar feeling of Catra’s fur against her skin sent a wave of relaxing energy through her.

A small bit of light fell on the nightstand beside the bed, where a tray held a bottle of orange juice and two aspirin. Carefully, she removed Catra’s arm from her side and sat up, draining the bottle but leaving the medicine. A chair pulled up nearby held her clothes, neatly folded, along with a plush violet bathrobe hanging off the back and a pair of slippers at the feet. Now that she was fully woken up, she could also smell something cooking. Glimmer rubbed at her face, stretched, and stood up, donning the bathrobe and slippers before slipping out of the room.

Adora was in her kitchen, grocery bags strewn over the countertops as she made an omelette. She barely turned her head at the sound of footsteps behind her. “Good morning, Glimmer. Afternoon, really. Did you sleep well?”

“Great, thanks. I’m…kind of surprised to see you cooking?” she said, claiming one of the stools at the countertop. “Since you don’t eat, I mean.”

“What kind of host would I be if I let a guest go hungry? Besides, I like the creative potential. I haven’t done it much since Catra turned, so I had to send my assistant to the market for supplies—I can’t keep this sort of thing around often because I’ll end up counting pieces of egg shells or some such—but I do hope you’ll like it.” Adora turned around with a pepper shaker in her hand. “This used to be unimaginably expensive in Europe. Worth its weight in gold and then some. Now you can buy it for a dollar at any corner store. Modernity, you have to love it…but I’m sure you don’t want to hear my thoughts on seasonings.”

“Don’t mind me.” In truth, it disoriented her a bit when Adora made some casual reminder of how old she really was, but there was something reassuringly human about how she could still be fascinated by things.

Adora slid the omelette onto a plate and set it in front of her. “As long as I have you alone for a few moments, I hoped I could get your thoughts about last night,” she said. Glimmer felt her cheeks burning, worsened when she remembered the acute effect that typically had on vampires. “If you had any comments, questions, concerns, complaints, things like that.”

“Catra did say you were thorough.” Glimmer chuckled, but Adora only nodded gravely at her comment. “Uh, no, nothing comes to mind. I know I enjoyed myself a lot…I know I’d be open to doing it again.”

She noticed then that Adora had brewed a cup of tea for herself, but only held it in her hand, occasionally breathing to take in the scent. “That’s good to know. Now, as rare as it is for me to come hat in hand to someone, I did have one other thing to ask. I’m sure you know that I’m still fond of Catra,” Adora said, fingers drumming on her teacup. Glimmer nodded as she started in on her omelette. “So I wanted to ask, without pressuring you, if you would be open to the two of us seeing each other again from time to time, now that she’s largely adjusted to her new life.”

Glimmer chewed slowly, pouncing on the excuse of her mouth being full to take a few moments to think about it. She’d had an inkling that something like this would come up eventually, it wasn’t any secret that their bickering was only a hair away from flirting, but the sting of jealousy at being asked something so brazen never materialized. In its place was some sense of…flattery, perhaps, that Adora respected their much younger relationship to ask like this. Glimmer set her fork down, but Adora jumped in before she could speak. “It’s not something I’ve discussed with her yet. If you’re not interested, then I won’t bring it up with her—”

“I think,” Glimmer said, very deliberately interrupting Adora, “we should be able to work something out. Can I ask for a condition?”

Adora’s eyebrow arched slowly up, then nodded once. Glimmer tried not to get caught in the head rush of having yet another vampire hanging on her words. “You have to show me how to do more of that teasing.”

Her request seemed to throw Adora for a loop at first, but she grinned and nodded. “Deal.”

“What’re you two making deals about?”

They both glanced toward the hall, where Catra was shuffling toward them. Despite a similar bathrobe that had been laid out for her, she had put on only the shirt Adora had worn the night before, leaving it completely unbuttoned and covering very little. Glimmer bit her lip as Catra rounded on her and pressed into her back with a soft purr. “Aww, I wish I could still eat meat. Glad it still smells good, at least.”

“You never liked my cooking all that much,” Adora said.

“Because you always burned everything.”

“Don’t listen to her, I once served her steak blue and she said it was overdone.”

Catra scoffed and nuzzled into Glimmer’s neck. “You just don’t like not being perfect at something.”

“All right, I’ve resisted asking until now, but I really have to know. How did you two even…” Glimmer gestured vaguely back and forth between them. “I know opposites attract and all, but still.”

Catra wound her arms around Glimmer’s waist and squeezed. “Do you want to tell the story, or should I?”

“At the risk of you embellishing everything out of all proportion, be my guest,” Adora said. Catra pulled a stool over with her foot and sat down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As indicated by the end there, the fifth and final chapter is going to be rewinding a few years to focus on just Catra and Adora. Again, if that isn't your bag, then I want to thank you for reading this far, and I greatly hope you've enjoyed the story.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the Catradora.

_Five years earlier…_

In retrospect, Catra was thinking that she should have just gone to her interview. That probably would’ve had a better result than staring down a pair of plant golems twice her size in the thrall of the chlorokinetic hippie behind the reception desk. Catra sized up her choices. Turning around and walking out still seemed like an option, as the receptionist had already directed her to do, while the branches making up the bodies of the golems looked too thin for her claws to get through. Plus the fact that it was probably a crime or something to assault a semi-sapient being. Her best course of action, or at least the only one that didn’t get her squished by an angry tree, increasingly looked to be backing down and leaving.

Unfortunately, Catra was terrible at backing down.

Their stalemate stretched out for several minutes, each unwilling to kick things off. Catra knew she didn’t have the advantage. A building this fancy had to have some kind of silent alarm system, and she'd have security at her back soon enough. On a conscious level she knew that the odds were rapidly stacking against her and it would be best to just disengage, but it couldn’t quite make the jump to action.

The phone rang. It was such an anticlimactic way to shatter their tension that Catra almost laughed. Instead she looked at the phone along with the receptionist, a slim red model without a keypad, and nodded pointedly at it. The receptionist edged over to that side of the desk and snatched the handset from its cradle. “Front desk…uh, yes, but she doesn’t have an appointment, so…really?” She turned and looked up at a camera overlooking the lobby. Catra’s ears flicked. “Well, that’s your business, ma’am…”

She flicked her wrist as she set the phone down, and the golems disassembled into their constituent plants, creeping back up to the elevated garden that sat behind the reception area. To Catra’s left, a set of elevator doors opened. “Well, go on,” the receptionist said, her voice so laced with false sweetness that it was almost cloying.

Catra couldn’t resist flashing a few teeth in her smirk as she sauntered into the elevator. It went gliding silently upward, noticeable only by the way it threw her equilibrium, before slowing to a stop and opening onto a darkened corridor. A strip of indicator lights embedded in the floor between sections of carpet lit the way to a pair of doors with one standing slightly ajar. Catra knocked twice and let herself in.

It was a rather unassuming conference room, a bit at odds with the elegance of the lobby downstairs in her opinion, and very dark. The windows were covered with blackout curtains, leaving only the light thrown by the lamps on the conference table to illuminate things. And really, the only thing of interest was the woman sitting at one end of the table.

She was strikingly beautiful, all sharp angles from the rise of her cheekbones to the precipitous drop of her jacket’s shoulders, with a flow of bright blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders and all the way to her waist. Catra tugged at her collar, suddenly contending with a host of unwelcome comparisons involving her untamable hair and the one even slightly formal shirt she owned. The woman put her hand up when Catra took a step forward, not bothering to look away from the tablet she was reading. Once she was finished, she finally looked up at Catra while twirling a pen between her fingers. “Please, sit. You must have something very important to say if you were ready to let Perfuma sic her plants on you.”

Catra gripped the back of the nearest chair, but remained standing. That didn’t go over so well. “ _Sit_ ,” she repeated, her voice rattling down to Catra’s bones. “You went through a lot of unnecessary trouble to get here, it wouldn’t do to have you looking like you’re ready to bolt for the door.”

She sank into the chair, wondering now if bolting was very much the right thing to do. The woman looked perfectly normal, and that was the problem. There was nothing obviously _off_ about her, by outward appearances she looked like a regular human. But she wasn’t. Nothing in a human voice could have compelled Catra the way hers did, and a regular human wouldn’t have had her muscles drawn tight from the position of control she was in, tensing like a predator readying an ambush.

And she wasn’t breathing.

Catra’s heart kicked into survival mode at the realization, which made the woman’s nostrils flare. She made an outward show of relaxing, still playing with her pen. This must have been what a prey species felt like, Catra thought. “So. I’m Adora.” One moment. Two moments. “And you are…? I know we haven’t met before, I’m good with faces.”

“Uh, right. Catra.” She produced a copy of her résumé from her bag and slid it across the table. Adora stopped it with the tip of her pen and looked it over, eventually offering a look form under her brow.

“You do understand that causing a standoff in the lobby isn’t the _best_ way to start an impromptu interview?”

“I know that now.”

Adora was on the verge of returning her résumé when something caught her eye and made her return to her tablet, tapping away at something on the screen that Catra couldn’t see. “I thought your name looked familiar,” she said, and flashed the screen at her. “Your interview is three blocks north, in the main administrative building.”

‘Familiar’ was about the best thing she’d ever heard about her name. “I thought I could aim higher than a mail room,” Catra said.

“Don’t knock the mail room, it isn’t glamorous but it’s very important—wait a minute. A magicat named _Catra_?”

She sank further into her chair. Adora seemed very amused by what she probably thought was an original observation, pressing her lips together tightly and chuckling a little. “Saddling me with that name was the least shitty thing those people ever did, believe me,” Catra muttered. All the jest went out of Adora’s expression at that, and she returned to focusing on her tablet for a moment.

“Ah. That’s right, now I remember where I’ve heard of you before. That debacle on Saddax Street with all the adoptive children.”

Of all the things for Catra to bluster her way into, having her past picked over was not one she had expected, and neither did she welcome it. “Look, I didn’t come here for a therapy session. This is a charity for nonhumans, right? You must need people. I can type eighty words a minute and I have a prehensile tail—”

“Oh, you misunderstand. There’s an entire branch of this organization set up to act as nonhuman child protective services because of your case, at least in part. I didn’t realize it had been so long since then,” Adora said. Catra perked up. Maybe she could still salvage this.

“Just imagine how poetically appropriate it would be for me to work there, then.”

Adora smiled, a real genuine smile, but the disarming effect was undercut somewhat by the hint of fangs at the edges of her mouth. “Easy. Your, how can I put this, _lived experience_ notwithstanding, I can’t simply drop you into a high-responsibility job like that. Not without some serious training. But…”

“But?”

“How attached are you to your blood?” Adora asked.

Catra’s tail curled up toward her body. There was some inkling in her mind of where this was going, but one toe off the tightrope she was walking could blow whatever chances she had of an actual job here. “I kinda need it to live.”

“All of it?”

The tips of two fingers worked nervously against her chair’s arm. Adora sat back and tucked the pen she was playing with into her jacket pocket. “Why don’t I speak plainly,” she said. “My last source of fresh blood moved recently, and getting it out of the fridge just isn’t the same. There’s some space in the next training battery for Aegis provided that you pass the screening tests, but until then, if you’re interested in an…internship, of sorts…”

“You’re a vampire, and you want me to be your blood bank.”

She’d heard of such arrangements, though not usually in such neutral terms. Adora nodded once, her body still tense. “If you think you can handle it.”

“What makes you think I couldn’t?” Catra asked, her competitive spirit rearing up against her better judgment.

Adora fixed her with a stare that all but pinned her in place. She grabbed the edge of the table with both hands as she rose, shoving it aside as if it were nothing more than twigs and leaving only empty space between them while the desk lamps flickered rapidly. The whites of her eyes ran red, falling short of meeting Catra’s gaze and settling instead on her neck. She was already tall while standing, but Adora seemed to get even taller after a moment, until Catra looked down and saw that there was a small gap between her feet and the floor, at the center of a swirl of air whipping through the space. When she spoke, the entire room trembled beneath her deep, resonant timbre: “Some people find the work intimidating.”

Catra wanted nothing more than to dart out of there like a deer or rabbit or something that would make her predator heritage cry out in protest. All the confidence she’d used to get this far shriveled in her chest like rotten fruit as she was subjected to a glimpse of power, _real_ power, aimed squarely at her.

But nothing came of it. The wind died, Adora planted herself back on the ground, and the red disappeared from her eyes. She dusted off the front of her jacket as she picked up one end of the table and pulled it back into place. “You didn’t run, I’ll give you points for that,” Adora said, leaning over the table to tap one of the lights that was still flickering. Catra’s heart pounded in her chest. “Either you’re very brave or suicidally tenacious. Given your display in the lobby, I’m leaning toward a bit of both. You’re welcome to the job, if you’d like it. Do well and I’ll roll you into the next training session, too. But humor me and answer one question.”

She returned to her seat, sinking into it slowly enough to make a mockery of gravity. “Yeah?”

“What was it you wanted when you showed up here today? I doubt it was a standoff and a show of vampiric power.”

Catra worried her tongue between her teeth. What did she _want_? She’d prepped for a lot of interview questions, and that wasn’t one of them. No one ever asked what she wanted when she was being shuffled around foster homes, dumped on someone or other until she aged out of the system. There was the obvious answer—money, for rent and food and whatnot—but she doubted that a surface answer was what Adora was looking for. Finally Catra squared her shoulders and looked up. “I want to make sure no one ever has to go through what I went through. I want to put every abuser and shitty ‘parent’ on notice.”

“Mm, well said.” Adora took a notepad from her jacket and hastily scrawled something, then ripped the paper away and stood. Catra pressed her feet into the floor to try and push her chair back, but Adora got to her before the wheels had lined up properly and dropped the paper into her shirt pocket. “This address. Half-past ten, tomorrow night. Eat something iron-rich beforehand.”

“That’s it? Just like that?” Catra asked. It seemed too easy. Almost like a setup.

Adora shrugged. “I’ve been at this for a very long time, I like to think I’m a good judge of character. And there’s really no point in making you fill out all of the paperwork before I know that you can actually do the job.” She took a wallet from her back pocket and started leafing through the bills inside before putting the whole thing down on the table. “Here. Get some proper food.”

Part of Catra wanted to bat it away and spurn the charity, but her hand refused to make the proper motion. The pragmatic part of her that was acutely aware of her bank account took it instead and tucked it into her back pocket. “Fine,” she mumbled, and got to her feet. Adora leaned back on the table. “So, tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night. And don’t be late…I get cranky when I’m hungry.”

⁂

There was no preparing for the instant when Adora’s fangs sank into her skin so that the venom could race through Catra’s body, no preparing for the rush of pleasure that ran down to her fingers and toes. Her eyes unfocused, the nerves she had been fighting all night disappeared, and every muscle went slack at once. Had Adora not wrapped an arm around her waist beforehand, she might have slumped right off the stool she was sitting on. As it was, she leaned back instead, into Adora’s cool embrace, while heat spread through her. The tip of Adora’s tongue flicked against her shoulder every so often, lapping up an errant drop of blood and drawing a moan out of one of them. Catra wasn’t sure who.

The warmth created by the venom’s interaction with her body grew hotter and hotter, settling deep within her and making her want to squirm. Her muscles were still far too relaxed, though, leaving her with the drive to work off the energy and no way to do it. Adora’s grip on her waist tightened, forcing some of the warmth lower. Catra purred despite herself, wondering how long they could drag this out before it started to hurt her.

And then, just like that, Adora pulled away, licking her puncture marks dry and laying a light kiss to help seal them. It was over. Without a constant infusion of the venom, it began dissolving in Catra’s bloodstream, fading despite the persistence of the ache between her legs. “Well, don’t you have an interesting taste,” Adora said, sitting back in her chair. Catra followed, despite the arm around her loosening. “Are you dizzy or lightheaded? Do you feel cold anywhere?”

“No, just where I’m touching your bare skin.”

Adora reached toward the table set beside their seats. “Drink your water anyway. I put an iron supplement in it so you won’t go anemic on me.”

Despite several snarky responses occurring to her, Catra only took the bottle from Adora’s hand and gulped down a few mouthfuls. It quelled some of the lingering warmth in her, though not all of it. “Um…”

“Yes?”

“Is it normal to want to jump on you after that?”

Writing off her attraction as an aftereffect of the venom if her overtures fell flat seemed like a good way to potentially save face. Adora prompted her to turn around on her stool, then picked up Catra to pull her into her lap. Despite the added weight, Adora’s legs didn’t move an inch. “The venom doesn’t magically make feelings appear, but it does…sharpen them,” Adora said, resting one finger beneath Catra’s chin and angling her head upward. “For both of us.”

Catra swallowed, hard, but Adora didn’t lean in. All she did was smile and sit back in her seat. “Of course, you’re still dizzy from the venom and blood loss, and I’m half-blood drunk on you. Not exactly a great starting point, hmm?”

They both seemed cogent enough, though protest didn’t seem like it would do much. Catra nodded and sipped at her water. Adora tilted her head. “What do you want?”

“You already asked me that.”

“I’m asking you again.”

She’d signed up for a job and not a therapist, hadn’t she? Adora was a little exacting, all told. Catra set her water bottle aside and slumped forward, suddenly tired. Strong arms wrapped around her and held tight. “I want power,” she said into the crook of Adora’s shoulder. “I want to have the power to never feel the way my—shit, I wish I had a better word for her, she doesn’t deserve this one—my _mother_ made me feel ever again. Like I was trapped. Chained down. Like there was a weight on my chest making it impossible to breathe.”

The arms around her began to loosen. Catra reached back and grabbed one of Adora’s wrists to keep it in place. “Not like this. This is flying, not being pulled under a current, like I’m never going to see daylight again. I like this.”

“You _are_ swimming in dopamine right now.” Adora adjusted her grip, tucking an arm underneath Catra to shift her a bit closer. Her nose brushed against Catra’s hair, and when she was so close it was obvious that she wasn’t breathing except to take in enough air to speak. It should have been unnerving; instead it felt like a comforting constancy. “Well. For as long it doesn’t feel like I’m dragging you down, I’m happy to keep you right here.”

Her tail swished beneath her.

⁂

“This feels weird. And I’ve had my blood sucked out of me, so that feeling has to count for something.”

Catra pawed at her blindfold as Adora led her somewhere, only to have her hands brushed away when she reached for it. Not that she was totally unaware of her surroundings, the rest of her senses were strong enough to pick out the fact that they were in some kind of store—the constant buzz of fluorescent lights, the slide of the automatic doors they’d passed through, the slightly over-sterilized retail smell, like someone had been a bit too free with the Lysol—but to what end, she couldn’t say.

“Have a little faith.”

That wasn’t part of her typical repertoire, but Adora had yet to lead her astray. They stopped…somewhere, and the blindfold fell to her shoulders. Catra raised an eyebrow. “No offense, but I’m not really in the market for weird-looking tchotchkes,” she said, peering further down the aisle she’d been led to. Catra couldn’t claim to have gone on many dates, but a home goods store devoid of people was an…interesting choice. She picked up a clock housed in the shell of a ceramic snail from the nearest shelf, watching its googly eyes bounce around on thin springs. “People actually buy this junk?”

“No, that’s why this place went out of business,” Adora said as she stepped into the next aisle. “The city’s market for kitsch isn’t nearly this big.”

Catra put the snail back and rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t even take this stuff for free, so I’m not sure what we’re doing here. Unless you’re trying to show me how awful working in retail would be so I don’t quit as your bank.”

“I prefer the carrot rather than the stick when it comes to employee retention. No, I bought this place and laid off the staff with a few months’ worth of severance, then sold or donated what people would actually take.” Adora returned with a pair of clear safety goggles and a sledgehammer that she handed to Catra. “Go crazy.”

“You want me to demolish this place?”

Despite her skepticism, she still took the goggles and the hammer. It was even heavier than it looked, and she had to drag it across the floor rather than pick it up. Adora shrugged. “It’ll cost the same to bulldoze the place whether it’s pristine or a pile of rubble. And I think you have some, how can I put this, anger to work out,” Adora said, her gaze slipping to the sledgehammer that she’d handed over. “I’ve known plenty of people who talked and pantomimed in their sleep, but the way you curse and make those strangling motions is…singular.”

“You’d be angry too if you got to relive my memories all the time,” Catra muttered.

“Well, here’s your pressure valve, dear.”

Catra turned and looked at the shelves full of garbage that couldn’t even be given away. She flicked at one of the springy eye stalks on the nearest snail. It bounced and wobbled back and forth before returning to its upright position. Her lips curled into a snarl at the way the motion reminded her of Shadow Weaver’s hair, of the silhouette she’d always dread seeing at the end of the hall. “Guess it’s better than going for drinks with my boss at Aegis,” Catra said as she put on her safety goggles.

“Scorpia means well, she just comes on strong.”

“Yeah, yeah. Stand back.”

It occurred to her that Adora was probably durable enough to take more than a few hits, but Catra wasn’t thinking about vampiric strength as she gripped the sledgehammer and swung it across the shelf. A row of ugly snail clocks shattered into hundreds of pieces as she blasted through, exploding in a storm of shards and dust. The momentum of the hammer forcibly spun Catra along with it until she had turned all the way around and struck the shelf behind her. A ripple wobbled through the metal before the whole thing sprang from its supports, collapsing into the shelf below and spilling more kitschy crap onto the floor.

She changed direction then, hefting the sledgehammer over her shoulder and bringing it straight down into a thundering impact with the display. The shelves twisted and bent under the force, crushing some ugly decorative candle holders and snapping several in the middle. A burn worked through Catra’s arms and shoulders, but this was way too much fun to think about that now. Every wild swing through the aisle was another crash into her parents’ faces, another bone she wanted to break, all racing up her arms and rattling her down to her feet.

“Getting it all out?” Adora asked.

Catra didn’t answer. She was too busy lining up a strike on some wall hangers spouting insipid inspirational quotes, working out the best distance and angle to destroy them all in one fell swoop. Of the ten stacked together, the first three shattered into nothing but splinters, while the rest cracked in half or fractured into several pieces.

One aisle after another fell to her haphazard demolition job, the shelves joining their unwanted products on the floor as soon as they held nothing large enough to break. Adora followed at a distance, occasionally kicking aside a piece of debris but otherwise doing nothing beyond observing. She disappeared from the far end of the aisle when Catra was forced to finally take a break, once her arms refused to pick up the sledgehammer again. It was worst in her right shoulder, and she gingerly rubbed it as she sat down against a section of yet-undestroyed shelving. It was an expensive brand of therapy, but damn if she wasn’t enjoying it. Adora returned with some water in a cup decorated like a clown’s face—how anyone thought this stuff would sell was beyond her—and pressed it into her hands, where fresh pink calluses shone through between sections of her fur. “Maybe I should’ve given you gloves.”

“I don’t even feel it,” Catra said, struggling to catch her breath.

“You will.”

“Besides, the only gloves you could probably find here would be a gardening pair covered in trowels or cutesy pictures of dirt—”

She stopped, half to get more air and half to look at the junk on the shelf facing her. This section looked like picture frames, the ugliest ones she could imagine, with frames the color of vomit and large wooden flowers that looked like they had been hastily glued on. Her focus, though, was squarely on the stock image stuffed into the frame, a pair of broad, smiling magicat faces that could have passed for mother and daughter.

All at once her strength returned. Catra leapt across the aisle and seized the picture frame, the sledgehammer forgotten behind her, and threw it on the floor. One hand closed into a fist and punched down into the middle, sending a web of cracks through the glass and distorting the picture beneath. The fur on the backs of her fingers pressed against the glass, scraping on the fresh edges, before she brought her hand up and punched it again. “Catra,” Adora said, but she was past the point of listening, or conscious thought whatsoever. Her body moved by reflex, crashing into the glass until it was so badly damaged that the picture was no longer visible. She turned her anger to the frame itself next, ripping each side away from the rest to snap them in two. When it was destroyed beyond recognition, she grabbed another from the shelf and smashed it against the floor, sending bits of glass every which way.

Catra was getting ready to lift a third over her head and shatter it all in one go when Adora scooped her up despite her protests, squirming and hissing against the impossibly strong grip she had no hope of breaking. They dropped into a recliner that had to be the most nauseating shade of taupe known to any species, with Catra resting in Adora’s lap. “Give me your hand, please.”

It was only then that she realized she was clutching her fist to her stomach, and the pain began to ache up her arm as if seeing it was what made it real. She offered it up, only for Adora to rest it over her own and start picking away the pieces of broken glass embedded in her fingers. “Part of the contract you signed said that you would refrain from any activities that carried a risk of excessive blood loss,” Adora said. Under her breath, she counted each piece she removed and set aside.

“Do you want to fire me?”

“No, not really. This isn’t _excessive_ enough for me to make a case of it.” Adora looked at the small smears of blood on her fingers, left there from pushing bits of fur aside, and licked them clean. Why did she look so hazy, suddenly? She wrapped her free arm around Catra and held her tighter. “But I didn’t want to see you hurt yourself.”

Catra sniffed and blinked to try and assuage the pricking heat at the corners of her eyes. “You didn’t want to see me lose any more of your precious blood, you mean.”

“I won’t insult your intelligence and say that your blood isn’t important to me. It is, more than you know. But so is the rest of you.” Adora leaned forward and kissed away some of the tears massing beside Catra’s eyes, which made her start. Adora was almost never affectionate unless she had just finished feeding. “All of you. When you’re ready we’ll go back to the office and have one of the doctors make sure there’s no more glass in your fingers, all right?”

She nodded and buried her face into the crook of Adora’s shoulder. “Yeah. In a minute.”

⁂

“That’s it, just let go…struggle all you want, I can keep going longer than you can, kitten.”

Catra was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of letting Adora chain her up—or she _was_ , when she had enough presence of mind to think about anything beyond grinding against Adora’s mouth. The padded cuffs around her wrists, ankles, and even the one keeping her tail in place were utterly unyielding, offering up nothing but the rattle of metal links moving over the bedsheets.

Sweat beaded up and matted her fur all over, while her panting cut a harsh staccato over the sounds of the chain links moving and their bodies shifting on the sheets. Even without having fed beforehand, every inch of her was sorely oversensitized. Adora relaxed her grip on Catra’s thighs and lifted her head, proudly displaying the slick sheen covering the lower half of her face. “You know, with all of your squirming, I’m starting to think you don’t want to come. Should I untie you and put you to bed?”

Catra arched her back, vainly trying to get at Adora’s mouth again. “No…”

Adora released her legs and moved up on the bed, resting on one shoulder so that she was level with Catra. Her hand was so _close_ , the cool insistence of her presence radiating against the heat Catra’s body was throwing off, but remained maddeningly out of reach no matter how she twisted and contorted herself. “Then won’t you be a good girl and stay still?”

Her answer was a defiant kiss, crushing her lips against Adora’s until some of her own arousal smeared across her chin. Catra could swear she was returning the kiss for a moment until Adora pulled back with an icy glare. “Make me.”

“I’ve never been with anyone who had such an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation,” Adora said, her voice lowering to a growl, and swept down on Catra’s neck before she could respond. The points of her fangs pressed at the skin there, small pinpricks of discomfort that receded and renewed every few seconds. Catra’s heart pounded in her chest. “I could, if you _really_ wanted me to. All it would take is one bite on the right spot and I’d have a wonderfully lifelike doll to play with for the rest of the night…”

Adora’s hand finally closed the distance between them, making Catra start as the heel of Adora’s palm rested over her clit. “But there’s no fun in that, is there?” she asked, slowly swirling her hand. One finger pressed at Catra’s sex, then a second, with just enough pressure not to slip inside. If it was a question she wanted an answer to, she wasn’t going to get one. Catra purred and mewled at the renewed pressure, looking at Adora with glassy, unfocused eyes.

“No, that’s the easy way out. I want you to obey because you _want_ to obey.”

Her kiss was heavy, bruising, claiming, tugging lightly at Catra’s lower lip as her fingers finally eased inside. They lacked the pleasant softness of her tongue, but the distinction soon disappeared. All that was left was the needful tightness in Catra’s hips, the desperate need for some kind of release as she moaned into Adora’s mouth. Each quick change in direction or tempo made her want to buck her hips, but she kept as still as she could, tense against the restraints. Her back arched defiantly anyway, instinct and reflex betraying her efforts, but Adora didn’t seem to notice. The curl of her fingers and the brush of her palm combined into a single nebulous heat licking at Catra, making her cant her hips and tense her legs for some small measure of respite without making it stop.

“Oh, you’re shaking,” Adora said, punctuating each word with a teasing press of her fingers, her lips still so close that they brushed on Catra’s as she spoke. Her muscles were strained almost to breaking, tenser than Catra ever remembered them being. “Usually you’re so calm after I’ve had my fill of you, this must be how you really are…I like it, how hard you’re fighting to stay in control. More for me to unravel.”

Another insistent press of her hand had more of an effect than she probably intended, and Catra gasped as her hips bucked wildly into the friction, greedily grabbing at what she could as all the tension unspooled and rushed out of her. She relaxed her back while the sharp collection of shapes that was Adora blurred along with the rest of the room. The feeling of everything going slack at once left her sinking into the bed, dead to the world as she stewed in her pleasure.

When things began pulling back into focus, it was hard to puzzle out Adora’s expression as she licked her fingers clean. Catra wondered if she was disappointed that she hadn’t been able to draw it out longer, or satisfied that she’d worked Catra over to the point of breaking, but the focus wasn’t there to tell. One by one, the shackles on her arms and legs popped open, followed by the straps on her thigh holding down her tail. Adora went from wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle, checking for bruises, before sitting again and easing Catra’s head into her lap. “It’s good to know where your limits are…I wouldn’t want to hit them too soon next time.”

“You know, they say that anything worth doing is worth doing quickly,” Catra said. A hand settled in her hair.

“Who says that?”

“I don’t know. It was worth a shot.”

She looked up at her—whatever Adora was to her. Vampire, girlfriend, boss, some morass of the three. Catra smiled and craned her head up when Adora leaned down to kiss her. “When you have nothing but time, you stop feeling the need to rush a good thing.”

“There’s only one of us here with all the time in the world, you know,” Catra said. “Unless you want to change that?”

Adora stroked her hair and let her hand drift to Catra’s cheek. “No need to rush, kitten. No need at all.”

⁂

“You’re still sure that this is what you want? Last chance to change your mind, because if we stop halfway through you’ll just…die. I don’t want that.”

Catra paused, more for Adora’s sake than anything. She wasn’t going to make this easy. But if five years of gently trying to ward her off hadn’t worked, then her resolve had to count for something. “I know, I know, this is a one-way trip and it’s not a pleasure cruise. Do it.”

“All right, then. Come here.”

Adora sat her up and smoothed out her shoulder as if they were feeding. At first nothing felt different, but then the press of Adora’s fangs went deeper, past the blood vessels and into the muscle tissue before the fangs from the lower half of her mouth pierced the skin too. Catra shut her eyes as the venom flooded further and faster than it ever had before, heat trickling down through the inside of her chest and warming to burning. A groan worked its way out of her.

Slowly, Adora’s arms wrapped around her, less a lover’s embrace and more a measure to restrain her as the venom in her body flared and ravaged her organs. Her stomach twisted over itself, every breath her lungs tried to take was like scratching fire in her throat, and suddenly all she could think of was the overpowering _need_ to get away. The feeling of her body shutting down piece by piece was too much for her mind to take, a press of danger from every side she couldn’t react to fast enough. Adora held her still, fangs sunk into her skin as Catra struggled to get away. She managed to push once against Adora’s arms before her strength failed her, before a crushing weight descended on her chest and the venom unraveled her muscles from the inside out.

Her mouth opened and closed, but either no words or breath passed her lips, or her hearing had failed her. As much as breathing hurt, being unable to do so triggered some primal fear, soaking her in adrenaline that she had no way of acting on. Catra tried to open her eyes, but the motion proved fruitless. There was no light or sound, or even the feeling of Adora’s arms around her, only the sickening feeling of falling, tumbling through emptiness forward and backward at once, so violently that she would have thrown up if she could.

She didn’t know how long it took for the venom to rebuild her. Minutes, hours. Adora had been mysteriously silent on how long it took. All Catra knew was that she felt it, all of it, from moment to agonizing moment as nerves she didn’t even know she had lit up and burned out. By the end she didn’t even know if she would be sane, or if the pain would simply drive her mad. If it meant relief, she wasn’t sure which she might prefer.

And then, as suddenly as it had come on, the pain lifted and conscious control returned. Catra started, eyes shooting open, and the darkened room came into sharper focus than even a magicat should have had. Individual bumps in the paint on the wall stuck out, the spider legs tip-tapping across the ceiling in the hall rang out like claps of thunder, and her fingers brushed against each individual thread of the sheets underneath her. The small bar of dim light from the hallway was almost more than her eyes could bear. A muted flash of pain echoed through her shoulder as Adora withdrew her fangs and opened her arms.

Catra fell forward onto the bed, taking in everything her new senses had to offer. She drew a breath out of habit, held it there, blew it out, and had to contend with the momentary disorientation of not feeling the need for another. The lingering smell of cleaning supplies from the room’s last once-over stuck in her nose until she made a conscious effort to breathe out and expel it. A hand pressed into her shoulder and turned her onto her back. Catra smirked, making sure to show off her newly-lengthened fangs. “Hey, Adora.”

The confidence Adora was trying to project mingled with relief as she swept down atop her. “Hey, Catra. How do you feel?”

“Like I was hit by a truck.” Catra went to stroke Adora’s cheek, but dropped her hand onto her stomach. “And hungry.”

“Well, that’s typical…wait here, I’ll get you a bag from the fridge. I guess we’ll both have to find new banks now, won’t we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had started writing this chapter before season 3, so Catra's anger issues were actually a coincidence, but it's always nice to feel vindicated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there's more. This one's Glimmadora.
> 
> Also, holy shit, someone did fanart for this story. You can see it [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/B1PJYz2IYuP/?igshid=147nddju4omw0).

Glimmer hid her frustration beneath a good-natured smile and leaned further over the table, avoiding the spots that had been iced over. “Let’s see if we can come at this from a different angle, okay Frosta? Frosta?”

Her mentee was thoroughly uninterested in her homework, choosing instead to conjure ice sculptures to try and distract Glimmer long enough to push all the papers off the table. Her control was improving, and several of her designs were taking on more elaborate shapes before starting to melt in the warm office, but none of it was very helpful for getting through her math homework. “That one looks like you, doesn’t it?” Frosta asked proudly, pointing to a pear-shaped block of ice that very much did not look like Glimmer. But disagreeing would only make her try again, so Glimmer nodded hastily.

“It’s great. We should put it in the freezer later to preserve it. Let’s get back to the worksheet for now—” The chirp of Adora’s ringtone cut Glimmer off— “At least read the next problem, I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t doubt that the worksheet would be encased in a block of ice when she stepped back into the room. “Hello?”

“Glimmer? Are you all right?” Adora’s voice had an uncharacteristic energy to it, almost frantic rather than cool and self-assured. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the office with Frosta, why? What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Her thoughts turned very dark very quickly, and without Catra there as an anchor she had nothing to keep her worst fears from playing out vividly in her mind. “Are you sitting down?” Adora asked, having regained a measure of composure.

“Please just tell me what’s going on…”

“All right.” Despite not having to breathe at all, Glimmer heard Adora take a deep, steadying breath. “I’ll have a car ready for you outside, have security walk you out. It’s going to take you to the hospital. Your mother and I…there was an incident. She had to be admitted.”

The phone twisted in her grip suddenly, and her heart kicked against her chest. “What happened?” Glimmer asked, her throat suddenly dry.

“I’m not sure we should discuss it on an unsecured line. Just try to stay calm, your mother isn’t in any immediate danger now, but she lost a good deal of blood. The doctors want to avoid any complications from introducing human donor blood into her system, and they don’t have any angelic blood on hand. You’re the closest match for a transfusion. Wait, do you know where the hospital on Ralen Boulevard well enough to just teleport here?”

Glimmer clapped her free hand over her mouth to keep a whimper from cracking out as she sank to the floor. Tears stung at her eyes despite her attempts to blink them away as the idea of her mother in her head was forced to reconcile with the reality Adora was laying on her shoulders. Her mother was a bother sometimes and a little overcautious, but the thought of her not being there, of her being _hurt_ …she shook her head clear and clambered back to her feet. “No, I’ll have to take the car. Can you call and have someone else look after Frosta?”

“Of course. And your father is already here, you needn’t worry about telling him.”

The line clicked out, and Glimmer broke out at a run to the lobby. Perfuma pointed her out to one of the guards, and she walked Glimmer to the curb where one of the company’s sleek black sedans was idling. She had barely shut the door behind her when the car pulled into the street toward midtown. Glimmer hugged herself and tried to distract herself by looking out the windows, but they were too heavily tinted to get more than the faintest shapes of the buildings they passed. Instead she hummed an old tune she remembered her mother using to soothe her when she was younger, but the effect seemed somewhat muted, under the circumstances.

She was shaking impatiently in her seat while the driver got out to walk her inside, where Adora was waiting by the admission desk. Some of the people nearby looked unnerved by her stature and general presence, but Glimmer could see how the day had worn on her. Adora had pulled her hair into a simple ponytail rather than its usual perfect coif, her lips were curled into an angry frown, and several bullet holes dotted her coat. Her boss’s glower melted to a calm, supportive expression when she caught Glimmer’s scent, taking up at her side before sending off the driver. Adora kept one arm protectively around her as they took the elevator up.

“What happened?” she asked, breathing hard. Her gaze trailed to a hole that had ripped through Adora’s clothes on her shoulder.

“Later, dear. There’s quite a bit to fill you in on and I don’t want to keep you.”

Her mother’s room had two of Adora’s guards outside keeping a wary eye on everything nearby. They stepped aside to let Glimmer in, and her legs almost gave out at the sight inside. Her mother, an actual, literal angel, was breathing shallowly through a ventilator while one of her wings hung limply over the edge of her too-short bed. Red spotted lightly through her thin white gown around her midsection, and half a dozen machines were crowded around her to spit out information Glimmer had no idea how to interpret. She rushed to her father beside the bed, and his embrace was the only thing keeping her upright when she saw the spatter of blood across Angella’s cheek. “Mom?”

She wasn’t sure if she could be heard over the steady sound of the ventilator, but her mother opened her eyes halfway and turned her head—or let it fall to one side—and mouthed what looked like _Glimmer_ through the ventilator mask. Glimmer put her hand over Angella’s, already tight in her father’s grip. Already worryingly cold. Her tears flowed with no attempt to stem the tide.

“I don’t want to cut this short, but they wanted to do the transfusion as soon as possible,” Adora said from the doorway. She leaned back to speak with one of the guards. “Please go and find the doctor, tell him her daughter is here.”

Angella’s eyes fluttered shut again.

The doctors and nurses were very quick about everything. Glimmer preferred to think it was because they were simply that committed and not because of the armed guards right outside. Someone strapped her arm down to a chair they wheeled in and stuck a needle into the crook of her elbow that was attached to her mother’s central line. She had long since gotten used to the sight of her own blood, and had no trouble watching dully as it flowed out of her in between sending messages to Bow and Catra to bring them up to speed. Her father’s concern swung back and forth between them the whole time, and Adora, despite the room being full of the scent of magic-infused blood, sat at the foot of Angella’s bed and watched her intently.

It took the better part of three hours for the doctors to take as much as they dared, just under two pints, slowly enough that she wouldn’t go hypovolemic. Even so, Glimmer’s skin felt cold and clammy by the time they removed the line, and her reactions were sluggish while a nurse injected a dose of epoetin alfa and someone put a kale smoothie and a glass of orange juice on the nightstand beside her. She felt powerless to stop her head from lolling to one side until Adora was next to her, holding her steady. “You did great, Glimmer,” Adora said gently, taking the juice and holding it to her lips before angling it ever so slightly. It was almost too tart, but she got a mouthful down. “Couldn’t have gone better. She’s going to be fine.”

Glimmer made a sound of acknowledgment, unable to nod without knocking the cup into her lap. When she had finished the juice, Adora held up the smoothie for her while rapidly tapping something out on her phone. Glimmer looked over at her mother in between sips and saw her stirring, wings flexing slightly in the cramped quarters. Well. If Adora said it was going to be fine, surely there wasn’t any harm in closing her eyes…for a few minutes…

She was still a little unsteady when she awoke. The wall clock said it was half past nine, and the sky outside the shuttered windows was pitch-black. Glimmer stood, too quickly, and sat back down to wait out the dizziness while looking over at her mother. Angella’s breathing looked better than before, and the inside of her mask was fogging up regularly while she slept. Adora was speaking with Micah near the door, quietly enough that Glimmer couldn’t make out what her father was saying when he gestured her way. She tried standing again, slowly, as they came her way. “Do I have to ask them to put another bed in here?” Glimmer asked.

Adora shook her head. “I was able to twist their arms enough to allow your father to stay overnight, but I only have so much influence.”

“I—I’m not going to just leave,” Glimmer protested. She waved vaguely at Angella. “What if Mom needs more blood?”

“You couldn’t provide it even if she did, you’re going to be near-anemic for a week,” Micah said, and pulled her into a sidelong hug. Glimmer closed her eyes against the fabric of his jacket. “But it would probably be better if you weren’t alone tonight. Adora said that Catra was away on a business trip, but she offered to put you up in her spare room until she gets back.”

If she’d had more blood, her face would have flushed at the memory of what had transpired the last time she was in Adora’s apartment. Her father rubbed between her shoulder blades. “Besides, you’ve been in this room long enough, you can get back without any trouble in the morning. The doctor said the worst has passed, Mom only needs time to get her strength back.”

Glimmer eased away from her father and went over to the bed, where Angella was still asleep. Everything about her looked so fragile, despite their assurances. She leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her mother’s forehead, only for her wing to reflexively wrap around her. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mom,” she said. “All right. We can go.”

She hugged her father once more, then backed away until she had enough empty space to slip. Adora put a hand on Glimmer’s shoulder as she visualized the apartment, then reached out for the latent magic in the room. Everything grew bright, a chill ran over her skin, and then they were in Adora’s kitchen…in complete darkness. “Stay still for a moment, I’ll get the lights for you,” Adora said, and padded carefully in one direction. They all snapped on in an instant, making Glimmer wince. “Let’s sit you down and get some real food in you, then I can explain, as promised.”

Glimmer allowed Adora to guide her over to the couch in the living room area. “You have food ready to go?” she asked.

“I had a few things delivered earlier.” Adora paused as she returned to the kitchen. “I expected that I might have you over, since Catra is away and I didn’t want to risk you having a syncope when you were alone.”

She busied herself with preparing the food, then brought it over before Glimmer could even try to get up. Almost all meat, broken up by a handful of carrots and a sweet potato. “Go ahead and eat, I’ll try to explain everything,” Adora said. She sank onto the other end of the couch and looked tired for the first time ever. “We went for drinks. Well, she went for a drink, I pretended to sip at mine to be polite. I should have been paying more attention…they went for her as soon as we walked out of the shop. It happens sometimes, humans who want to send a message by killing creatures like us. But not angels.”

“So why do it?” Glimmer asked, her mouth full of sweet potato.

“They wanted her blood, I imagine. It’s even more potent than yours is. But my presence threw off their plans, so they tried to kill me before making off with her.” Adora pointed to some of the bullet holes in her coat. “Unfortunately, Angella forgot that to me small-caliber bullets are more of an annoyance than anything and threw herself in front of one. One attacker got away, what’s left of the others will probably be in the city morgue by now. The police are investigating, as are my own people. I’m going to deal with this, I promise.”

Glimmer nodded slowly and set her fork down. “Thanks…for protecting my mom.”

“Of course. I know you’re not exactly diurnal right now, but I wouldn’t recommend staying up too late. Your body needs rest. I can sit up with you if you like, otherwise I’m going to set up the guest room and take care of some paperwork.”

“No, that’s fine. I think I’m okay now.”

Adora stood and took her plate away, looking almost curiously at what was left of the food, before giving Glimmer a pat on the head. “Just give a shout if you need anything.”

She put a glass of juice on the table in front of Glimmer before disappearing down the hall. There was a pause, a muffled sound of surprise, and hurried back in to turn the thermostat up. “Sorry, sorry, I know humans like warmth,” Adora said, and left again.

Even with her near-anemia and stress, the earlier nap was staving off Glimmer’s need for sleep. She quickly found, though, that there wasn’t very much to do in Adora’s apartment. Not much that interested her, anyway. The coins and other antiques were nice to look at for a while, and her television had every channel and streaming service Glimmer could think of, but nothing could hold her attention for more than a few minutes before her thoughts returned to her mother, to gunmen trying to abduct her. She shivered and sprawled across the couch, searching for something that could take her mind off of it for even a little while, and then picked up her phone to send a message to Catra: _Are you still up?_

Her reply came a few moments later: _Yeah, finally got away from Scorpia, back in my room. How’s your mom?_

Rather than keep typing, Glimmer called her, laying the phone flat on the couch cushion and turning on her side to put it close to her ear. Catra picked up right away. “Something wrong?”

“No, no. I did the transfusion, it seems like it worked. My dad’s staying there tonight, I’m crashing at Adora’s place tonight. She didn’t think I should be alone right now.”

There was a discomfited sound from Catra’s side of the line, as if she felt guilty for not being there. “So fill me in, what happened? I met your mom, she’s…you know, no one would want to _hurt_ her.”

Glimmer relayed everything Adora had told her, still processing it herself, and heard Catra’s footfalls as she paced. The idea that it was about her blood, blood Glimmer shared in some amount, made Catra growl. “Shit…well, stay there in her apartment when you’re not with your mom, all right? It’s basically a fortress. And I’ll see if I can get an earlier flight back.”

“Thanks.”

“Take the chance to rest, I know you work hard. And get ready for her to pamper and spoil you rotten,” Catra said. “Adora’s going to fuss over you like it’s her job. I’m sure she’ll take _good_ care of you until I get back.”

Glimmer bit back a yawn and nodded, then remembered Catra couldn’t see her. “Yeah…I think I’m going to turn in, they took a lot of blood and I’m still worn out.”

“I can’t say I like the idea of your blood going anywhere else, but I think I can make an exception for this. Night, babe.”

“Night.”

She tapped around on the phone for a moment until she hit the right button to end the call, then slowly sat up and rolled her head back and forth. Catra’s preferred spot in the crook of her right shoulder was still sensitive, and she touched at the two small divots where the fangs always entered before standing up. Enough of her strength had returned that everything didn’t go woozy, but Glimmer felt enough of a list in the room to know that she was going to fall asleep soon, whether she liked it or not.

The last time she’d been in the apartment, she’d been too preoccupied with circumstances to give much thought to Adora’s bedroom, but now the door was hanging ajar with a light on in the en suite. Glimmer poked her head inside, curiosity wrestling with exhaustion. It was much the same as the rest of the apartment, half-living space and half-museum, with several shelves packed with old coins, trinkets, and religious icons. She was looking at a bundle of yellowed white fabric preserved under glass when there was a small, metallic _clink_ from the bathroom.

Adora was sitting on the lip of an enormous tub, stripped to her underwear, digging a pair of needle nose pliers into her shoulder. There was an occasional flash of pain on her otherwise dispassionate expression as she fished around and finally extracted the twisted remains of a bullet that she dropped onto a metal tray. Glimmer watched, gripping at the door frame. Adora hadn’t fully undressed the last time she was here, but now Glimmer could see each cord and plane of muscle on her body, as if she was carved from living stone. She glanced up while still feeling at her shoulder for any fragments she’d missed. “Was there something you needed, dear?”

“Ah—no, sorry. Just wanted to say goodnight. And thank you, again.”

“Of course. There’s a tablet and some water on the nightstand in the guest room if you have trouble sleeping. I can send someone tomorrow to get your clothes so you don’t have to make do with what I have on hand.”

Glimmer nodded, and Adora went back to picking bullets out of herself. She found the guest bedroom down the hall with a change of nightclothes on the bed, but suddenly she was too exhausted to do anything more than crawl under the sheets and stare at the ceiling.

⁂

Her time over the next week divided neatly between the hospital and Adora’s apartment. Angella was slowly regaining her strength without the need for another transfusion, and she tried vainly every day to assuage Glimmer’s concern when she showed up in the afternoons. The doctors said much the same, but she still refused to leave the room until she was exhausted and her mother had nodded off. Adora tried to come by each day for at least a short while, smuggling in the kind of chocolates that Angella liked and keeping vigil while her guards took their breaks. Eventually, though, a nurse would come by to check all the machines and make some obtuse comment about visiting hours, and Glimmer would reluctantly bid Angella farewell to return to Adora’s apartment.

And on that score…Catra had, if anything, understated Adora’s idea of pampering. Rather than move all of Glimmer’s things out of her own apartment—something she seemed fully prepared to do—she simply bought duplicates, turning the guest bedroom’s wardrobe into a mirror of the one Glimmer had at home. Admittedly she had nowhere to go other than the dining room table, where she could while away a few hours at a time doing paperwork while picking at the latest meal Adora had whipped up, but the thought was there. By nights Adora would sit up with her, explaining the stories behind the curios Glimmer pointed out or letting Glimmer introduce her to new television shows. And when she inevitably fell asleep on the couch in the early hours of the morning, Glimmer would sometimes rouse just enough to realize Adora was carrying her back to bed, cradling her like a fragile bit of jade.

“I told you it would be bad,” Catra said, leaning forward to adjust her laptop’s camera and not-so-subtly letting Glimmer see down her shirt as she did so. Her schedule had proved unyielding, and she was still stuck on the other side of the country.

“Who said it was bad?” Glimmer took another pillow and stuffed it under the side of her head as she stretched. “I still have stuff to do for the magus programs, but other than that it’s basically a vacation. Personal chef included.”

Catra made a face. “She burns everything.”

“Just because something isn’t so raw that a good vet could still save it doesn’t mean it’s burned.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Catra flopped down on her bed and blew some hair out of her face. “So I know there’s a lot going on there and all, but have you…you know, slept together yet?”

Glimmer cocked her head, then picked up her laptop to pan around the room. “I’m in the guest bedroom, I thought I mentioned that? I fell asleep on the couch a few times, but she never stayed in here after she brought me back.”

“ _Babe_.”

“Oh! Oh…” Glimmer put one hand over her cheek to try and hide the flush of color there. What a thing to miss. Suddenly all the oddly pointed comments Catra had made during their nightly calls about Adora’s _hospitality_ made sense. “I really haven’t been thinking about it, honest. Today’s been the first chance I had to actually focus on something else without worrying. And why are you saying _yet_? I don’t just turn to mush around vampires, you know.”

Catra seemed to be trying very hard not to say something to the contrary as she shrugged. “We both had fun the last time we were at her place, I figured it would probably happen sooner or later. Stress relief and all that. I thought she was just being coy when I asked her the other night after giving her the progress report…well. Talk to her if you like. I’m sure she’d be game, but it’s up to you.” There was an excited knock from somewhere off-screen, and Catra groaned. “I have to pretend to be asleep, I’m pretty sure Scorpia rented a bunch of movies to make me watch. Talk later?”

“Yeah. G’night,” Glimmer said absently, watching as the call cut out and the screen shone on her face. She pushed her laptop away before rolling over and looking out into the hall. Glimmer was all but certain that Adora had heard their entire exchange, even if she was clear on the other side of the apartment, and the thought made her stomach tighten in a strange, if not unpleasant, way. Her thoughts truly hadn’t drifted in that direction after the first night there, when she saw Adora fixing herself up in nothing but her underclothes, but now they had taken a hard turn back in that direction. Slowly, her legs shifted against each other. The only idea of fidelity that vampires seemed to have involved who got to drink whose blood, and they had all happily enjoyed each other’s company months before anyway…

It was a little worrying to realize how easily she could go down this line of thought, and then that worry turned to a vague sense of excitement. The idea of a little stress relief certainly wasn’t without its appeal. Trying something to tamp down the background noise of anxiety that had persisted all week seemed worth a shot. So much the better if she was exhausted enough to fall right asleep afterward, too.

⁂

“You seem preoccupied.”

Glimmer started and looked up from the haddock she had been pushing around on her plate. Adora threaded her fingers together and rested her chin on them, offering an inquisitive tilt of one eyebrow. “Did things not go well at the hospital today?”

“No, Mom’s still getting better, she was even able to sit up and talk for a while,” Glimmer said quickly. Adora nodded, but didn’t look back at her work. Something about the intensity of her gaze threatened to make Glimmer wilt. She couldn’t concentrate on her dinner even if she wanted to. “I know I might be reading too much into this, but…are you hungry? You know, ‘hungry’?”

Adora shook her head. “I met with Bow earlier, I’ll be fine for two weeks.”

“Oh. Good. That’s good.”

She forced herself to look back down at her plate and take another mouthful of food. Glimmer blushed, drawing blood up to her cheeks, and Adora took in a long breath just to blow it out. “Because your heart is pounding,” she said. Glimmer’s stomach flipped. “Perhaps you’d prefer to eat without feeling like a meal yourself—”

“Wait, please.”

Adora’s serene expression always slipped when someone interrupted her, but she only straightened up and flourished one hand to prompt Glimmer to continue. “I’m guessing you heard my call with Catra last night?”

“I did.”

Glimmer swallowed hard. “And…what did you think about it?”

“I thought this past week was harrowing enough for you without having to deal with any such advances. You know that I find you fetching, surely. But given the circumstances, it seemed better to simply play the host. Of course, if you _are_ interested in that sort of hospitality,” Adora said, as Glimmer felt something tighten beneath her stomach, “I’m sure I could find a way to accommodate you.”

“Could you,” Glimmer began, but Adora was already out of her seat by the time Glimmer looked up. There was a sudden press of presence behind her, not quite warm or cold, but very certainly _there_. Her breath quickened.

“I could.” Adora’s hands alighted gently on her shoulders, making her shiver as they trailed down her arms and back up toward her neck. The skin there had grown sensitive from constant attention over the past months, and Glimmer’s heart leapt into her throat as Adora’s fingers mapped out every inch of her. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. One finger pressed to the soft space beneath her chin, pitching her head back so that Adora’s lips ghosted against hers. “If you wish.”

“I’m too gay for this,” Glimmer said, and pushed up into her lips. They were smooth and cool, slightly wetted, and way Adora seemed to wrap her up sent her spiraling. In an instant Adora had swept her up in her arms, and a little giggle escaped. She rested the side of her head against Adora’s shoulder and found it utterly solid. “Wow…”

“Shall we?”

Glimmer had never nodded so fast in her life. Adora carried her to her bedroom and almost set her down on the bed, then dipped forward instead and kissed at the softest part of her throat. The front of her fangs slid over Glimmer’s skin, making her body relax in anticipation of the venom, but passed by without biting. “Now then…”

Adora laid her down like freshly spun glass and slid her hand up Glimmer’s thigh to the hem of her skirt. Glimmer tossed it all off as quickly as she could, unwilling to miss a moment when Adora straightened up to unbutton her shirt and slide off her slacks. Once her shirt was on a pile in the floor, Glimmer slid forward on the bed and started to put her hand out before pausing. “Can I touch you?” she asked.

“Wherever you like.”

The hard plane of Adora’s stomach didn’t yield at all under Glimmer’s hands. She had to bite down on a nervous laugh when she reached up to feel at one of Adora’s arms, when she realized that Adora could probably snap her in half, vampire or not. One hand wound through her hair while she explored, lightening her touch at the already-forming scar tissue over the bullet holes but otherwise making a very detailed mental map for herself. “ _Abs_ ,” she all but rasped out.

“Catra has abs.”

“Yeah, but I can’t see them under the fur.”

“Aren’t you a flatterer,” Adora said, and guided her hands away so she could pull Glimmer’s blouse over her head. She pushed some hair from her face and tied it back as she placed one knee on the bed. “Would you like to keep things the way they were before, or perhaps you’d like to pick out a toy or two?”

Based on what she knew of Adora’s penchant for collecting things, that could mean any number of possibilities. “I could take a look…”

Adora retrieved a small chest from beneath her bed and opened it for her. To Glimmer’s surprise, there was nothing particularly esoteric, or at least nothing that she didn’t know the name of. She looked through the neat little collection, idly wondering how often some of this was used, before picking out a harness with a shaft already attached. “Maybe you could wear this?”

Glimmer blushed again when she saw the way Adora grinned. “As you wish,” she said, and went to put it on while Glimmer shifted up the bed. Oh, how she wished…Adora stretched her arms as she turned back to her, thick cords of muscle flexing under her skin, and Glimmer could actually feel her brain short-circuit at the sight. She watched Adora climb onto her bed and draw closer, one fang showing over her lower lip, as she dipped down to plant a kiss on Glimmer’s calf. “Just lie back, dear. I’ll take care of you…”

Her kisses crept higher, fangs teasing, as she wrapped her hands around Glimmer’s thighs and gently parted them. _Now_ Adora looked hungry, and she took a long breath as her cheek rubbed against Glimmer’s skin to plunge into her scent.

Adora had all the time in the world and she acted like it, inching her tongue upward bit by tremulous bit, carefully applying just enough pressure to make her squirm, before letting it drift away before coming to Glimmer’s clit. She groaned in disappointment and felt Adora’s fingers tighten ever so slightly on her thighs, then arched her back to try to push up to her. Not that it did any good—Glimmer couldn’t possibly overpower her, and Adora was in no rush as she explored. “Tell me when you’re close,” Adora said, her voice nothing more than a low hum. “So that I can stop.”

Glimmer realized, maybe too late, that Adora hadn’t properly teased her before. She’d been used to tease Catra, but the full force of Adora’s attention was something else entirely. Her back arched further, muscles drawn taut, but there was no way to push her body up enough as the pleasure wound tighter with such little hope of relief. Even when she wasn’t able to speak between her gasps, Adora seemed to know exactly when to slow down to keep her riding the edge, letting her come down without finishing before ramping up again. Too much practice, Glimmer thought with her remaining scraps of cogency.

Sweat beaded up on her forehead by the time Adora seemed to let up for real. Every inch of skin was hot and flushed, and her overtaxed muscles were shaking so badly that the sheets bunched up underneath her. “Close?” Adora asked, barely moving. Glimmer managed to nod somehow, only dimly aware of Adora looming over her and pressing the shaft of the toy at her sex. One hand pushed back a bit of Glimmer’s hair. “I should have played with you sooner, you really do make the cutest faces.”

The sudden swell of fullness knocked the air from her lungs, in time for Adora to sweep down and catch her lips, still wet and shining. Glimmer shook and shivered against Adora, arms and legs wrapping tight against the solid mass of her body, need and pleasure coiling tighter and tighter with every deep thrust. It snapped on one frantic instroke, sweeping through her body and making her hands claw uselessly on Adora’s back, but their rhythm didn’t stop. Adora kept up her pace until a second climax reduced Glimmer to a whimpering, quivering mess.

When she was finally satisfied, Adora carefully eased back, tossing the harness aside so she could lay down and pull Glimmer onto her, winding lazy circles across her back with one finger. Glimmer was in the middle of piecing her mind back together when Adora spoke, little more than a low rumble against her chest. “I ought to have guests more often, I like being a good host.”

“I like you being a good host, too,” was all Glimmer managed to get out before nodding off.


	7. Chapter 7

Catra’s leg bounced restlessly as she looked out the window, watching as they circled the airport below. She wanted to be down there now, not when all the larger airliners had finished taxiing while they waited in a holding pattern. She _could_ have been down there now, falling was much more survivable when gravity was negotiable, but she knew the crew would frown on her depressurizing the cabin to open the door.

Scorpia snored loudly from the three seats she was sprawled across on the other side of the cabin. Catra growled and sipped at the straw punched into her last blood bag. Would that she could sleep so easily. Apart from her boss sounding like a jackhammer, she had gotten far too used to company in her bed. And that wasn’t even getting down to the matter of her nerves, strung tight over the last two weeks while Glimmer was trying to pick up the pieces after the attack on her mother, while she had been a continent away.

Her ears popped, and they began to descend into an approach corridor. Finally. Catra finished her snack and tossed one of the empty miniature vodka bottles at Scorpia’s arm. “Wake up, we’re landing.”

Catra rolled her eyes when Scorpia jolted awake and promptly fell onto the floor. They touched down into a slight headwind and slowed to taxiing speed before turning off the runway toward the company hangar. Catra looked out the window beside the hatch, waiting and waiting until they slowed enough to jump out. She tapped her foot when they finally lurched to a complete stop and the attendant came to open the hatch. No sooner had she gotten down the steps than the door of a sleek sedan within the hangar opened and Glimmer stepped out. Her heart thumped, now an acutely unfamiliar sensation. She bounded up and swept Glimmer into her arms, lifting and spinning her twice. Her laugh, her scent, the pleasant press of her skin—Catra could have gotten drunk on it all, after so long away.

“Miss me?” Glimmer asked when she was allowed back on the ground. Catra let her go, but wrapped her in an embrace a moment later. Why had she ever agreed to go on this trip in the first place? “Oh! That’s a yes, then.”

“You have no idea…how is everything? With your mom, I mean?”

“They’re discharging her tomorrow.”

One hand reached into Catra’s hair, stroking softly. She couldn’t help the small purr that escaped. “Good, good. That leaves us with the rest of the day, then? If Adora’s let you off house arrest, that is.”

“I’m free and clear,” Glimmer said, planting her hands on Catra’s arms to push back slightly. Just as well, Catra’s cheek had been pushed into the crook of Glimmer’s shoulder, and it was beginning to make her hungry.

“Then how about magicking us back to our bedroom?”

Scorpia would have to deal with the luggage on her own. Catra scooped up Glimmer and held her in her arms as they began to glow violet. There was a brief snapping feeling, a press of coldness that made her fur stiffen, and then they were home, back in the room they shared. “So,” Glimmer began, but she had no opportunity to continue before Catra descended on her in a mad flurry of kisses. They half-stepped, half-stumbled to the bed and fell onto the sheets before Catra could spare a hand to slip under Glimmer’s shirt.

“I missed you,” Catra said through a growl when she let Glimmer break for air, ravenous again despite her snack on the plane, “so badly.”

“Yeah, I can see—oh!” Glimmer’s skin tightened under Catra’s claws when one ran up her spine, forcing out a shiver. “I can see that, come on, let me get a word in here…”

“All we’ve done is talk for weeks. Need more.”

“Quit acting like a dog with a bone, I have to talk to you!”

She accompanied her insistence with a light, magically-enhanced _whap_ on Catra’s shoulder, not nearly enough to hurt but sufficient to get her attention. “All right,” Catra said, pouting a little. They had talked just last night, nothing had seemed all that vital then. And the dog comment seemed wholly unnecessary. She sat up and pulled Glimmer into her lap, then let her cheek rest on Glimmer’s shoulder. Two little fang marks stuck out on her otherwise smooth skin. “What are we talking about? And why didn’t we talk about it last night?”

“Because I was in Adora’s apartment last night and she can hear a pin drop four rooms over.” Glimmer smoothed Catra’s hair and trailed her hand down, where it met the fur on the nape of her neck. She sighed, but her heart rate picked up. Catra’s mouth watered. “I’m going to find the rest of the people who attacked my mom and make them pay. This can’t stand. And I’m not saying this so you can try and talk me out of it—”

“When do we start?”

Glimmer leaned back enough to look her in the eye. “Huh?”

“You didn’t think you could just tell me that and then not expect me to come along, did you?” Catra asked. Glimmer pursed her lips, then ultimately shook her head. “Yeah, like I was going to miss something like this. Let you go off on your own to have all the fun. Does Adora know?”

“I didn’t say anything to her.”

“You think that means she doesn’t know? She’s not a mind-reader, but she’s pretty smart.”

“Well…” Glimmer sighed. Hell, even Catra could have seen this coming. Who wouldn’t want revenge against people who attacked their mother? Well, Catra wouldn’t. She might have sent them a card if someone shot that waste of space. But Angella was much more deserving of a revenge mission. “She’s friends with my mom. She’ll understand.”

“Mmhmm. But speaking of Adora,” Catra said, retracting her claws and letting her hand slip up the inside of Glimmer’s thigh, “I think there are more pressing matters now that I’m back.”

Glimmer’s voice was shaky as she rocked her hips forward to get closer to Catra’s hand. “Are there?”

“Details, babe. Spill it.”

“She’s definitely a tease,” Glimmer said in between gasps, squirming against the stimulation. Catra grinned. “Don’t know how I didn’t go crazy…but I was begging her by the end…”

She tried valiantly to recount her evening with Adora, but the slow circuit of Catra’s fingers proved too much after so long away, and Glimmer fell against her lips with a new fervor before long. Catra had to take a little pride in that.

⁂

As wearying as weeks on end with only Scorpia had been, it had meant no status meetings, and Catra wasn’t looking forward to returning to those. Nor had Adora given her any time to decompress, calling her in the very next afternoon to get an update on their west coast operations. So, still jet-lagged and wearing her clothes from the day before, Catra trudged into the office with a thermos full of coffee—habit, mostly, but she needed the warmth and the placebo effect the caffeine now provided.

Though she wasn’t sure why Adora had asked Glimmer to come along. Protection, probably. Adora likely didn’t want her alone at their apartment, forcing her to tag along for what promised to be a long conference.

“You were still up when I went to sleep, did you manage to find out anything?” Catra asked when the elevator doors closed in front of them.

“No…I don’t know what kind of sites people who would attack angels frequent. I’m basically stumbling around in the dark. Unless you have any ideas?”

Catra shook her head. “I’m not really an internet person.”

The blinds in their usual meeting room weren’t drawn, making Catra hiss and throw one arm over her eyes to shield herself from the sunset. Not that the added heat in the room wasn’t nice, but she would have traded it for dimmer lighting. Adora was in the corner, reading something on her tablet, and motioned wordlessly to the seats around the table. Glimmer paused and looked around the room, brow furrowed, and Catra bristled at the unease coming off of her. “Something wrong?” she asked.

Glimmer frowned. “I feel magic, but not a kind I recognize. Is Adora a magus?”

“It’d be news to me.”

“Are you two talking about me? My ears are burning.”

Adora tucked her tablet under her arm and stood beside her usual seat at the head of the table. Her fingers drummed against the chair back. “So. What do you have to report, kitten?”

Catra’s claws scraped against the table’s surface in annoyance. “About sixty percent of the positions are filled at the west coast headquarters, mostly admin. We’ll probably need to fill the specialized jobs and send them over. Our legal team said the planning committee approved the land purchase for a satellite facility, and…”

She trailed off, leaning forward slightly to situate herself in front of Glimmer, and ran a claw over the table again. Adora didn’t even look as the veneer scratched away. “And?” she prompted.

“And you’re not Adora.”

Her mouth twinged, whoever she really was. “You have some nerve, throwing around accusations like that,” she said, and sauntered slowly around the table toward them. Catra kicked her seat back as she stood to shield Glimmer. “I’m hurt, really. Did all that west coast sun bake your brain?”

Catra extended the rest of her claws and lowered herself to pounce, tail flicking for counterbalance. Whoever this was clapped a hand over her mouth in feigned surprise. “Oh, look at that, you go away for a few years and all of a sudden the kitten’s got claws.”

She pivoted on one heel and fell backward toward Catra, who caught her in her arms. She blinked, and it was… _wrong_. The whites of her eyes turned green, the irises went yellow around slit pupils, and a second set of eyelids came in from the sides. Her body went black, twinkling with pinpricks of light and burning with heat as it thinned and lengthened before coalescing into a lithe green frame in a black bodysuit, topped with a long shock of blonde hair and showing off the smuggest grin possible with a row of razor-sharp teeth. “Hey, kitten.”

“Ugh.” Catra pulled her arms away, but their tail kept them upright as they flipped backward and landed with a flourishing bow. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“That’s the magic I sensed, your shapeshifting,” Glimmer said, poking her head out from behind Catra with an excited look. “You’re an elf!”

“Darling, I’m an _experience_. But yes, that too.” Catra rolled her eyes. “You can call me Double Trouble. It’s…more poetic in Quendya, but the sounds would give you a migraine. What gave me away?”

Glimmer walked out from behind Catra and approached them in apparent fascination, only to have Double Trouble playfully snap the end of their tail at her. Catra stalked up to them. “Adora hates it when I scratch the table.”

“I’ll make a character note to take issue with everything you do in the future.”

“You two know each other, then?” Glimmer asked.

“Unfortunately. What are you doing here, DT? I thought you were in the corporate espionage scene,” Catra said. “You know, far away from us.”

“Adora called in a favor. I’d rather hoped she forgot about that, it was a few centuries ago…but now I’m stuck minding you two. Babysitting,” Double Trouble said with a grimace. They looked closer at Glimmer, who recoiled a little from the scrutiny, and took her shape. Glimmer yelped and jumped back as her doppelgänger grinned. “And you’re the demiangelic slip magus dating the vampire. Aren’t you just ticking off all the Mary Sue checkboxes.”

Catra growled in irritation, but found herself tempering the sound now that it was directed at—the image of—Glimmer. “Okay, you got the part, now will you please tell us what the fuck you want? Adora didn’t hire you to impersonate her.”

They reassumed their usual shape, though Catra realized that she had no idea if it was what they _really_ looked like. Double Trouble perched themselves on the conference table and thoughtfully tapped their chin. “No, that’s just a fringe benefit. She read me in last week to snoop around on whoever it was that attacked your girlfriend’s mother.”

“Do you know anything?” Glimmer asked hurriedly, stepping toward them again. “Please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely. I wish some of that politeness would rub off on your girl there, she’s always been a pain in the tail base.” Catra bared her fangs. Double Trouble put one hand up in conciliation and reached for the tablet on the table. “All right, all right. No sense of pacing. Here. There’s a club downtown, it’s a front for one of those human supremacist gangs. One of the assailants Adora killed had ties to them. No idea if they’re the exact people you’re looking for, but if they’re not, then they probably move in the same circles.”

Catra looked over Glimmer’s shoulder at the address on the tablet. It wasn’t an area she knew very well, her work never took her to that district. Probably because it was a hotbed of human supremacist activity, she thought. “So what are we still doing here?” Glimmer asked, and turned around to go for the door. Catra rushed ahead of her.

“Whoa, wait a minute! We can’t rush there without knowing anything. It’s not like we could just stroll in and start beating them up until someone talks. If they’re the same people who attacked Angella, then we have to assume they have no problem trying to kill anyone who gets in their way.”

“If _only_ you knew a devilishly handsome shapeshifter who could reconnoiter the place and get you as close as possible,” Double Trouble said, absently kicking their legs back and forth.

Glimmer turned back to Catra and nodded frantically. Catra frowned. “And why would you do that?”

“Because I don’t get paid if either of you are seriously hurt.” They grinned, showing off those teeth. “And because you’re going to say you need my help, kitten.”

“You little fucking—”

Catra felt Glimmer’s hand on her arm, and didn’t need to look to see the pleading expression she surely had. Her pride went down bitter as she swallowed it. She was going to get them back for this. Whether in a week or in a century, it didn’t matter. “Double Trouble, I…need your help. So please help us.”

They leaned forward. Oh, they were relishing this. “Because…?”

“Because you’re the only devilishly handsome shapeshifter I know,” Catra said through gritted teeth. Her claws extended and pushed into her palm as she made fists.

“There we are.” Double Trouble hopped off the table and came slinking up to Catra, still grinning, and lightly cupped her cheek. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? You should go and get ready for tonight. I’ll text you the where and when. And wear something that covers up most of your fur, I doubt this place is magicat-friendly.”

⁂

“So what’s the story with you two?”

Catra grimaced and shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks. She was fighting the urge to roll up the sleeves of her jacket, since doing so would expose more fur. Hopefully it would be dark enough in the club to do away with it altogether. “They’re just a seriously annoying elf that Adora knows from way back. We’ve worked together a few times. Unfortunately. Like a theater kid on steroids. Try one time to get them to take something seriously without a bag of gold in your hand and see if I was too harsh.”

She hoped that answer would satisfy Glimmer. The sidewalks were almost empty at this time of night, but Catra’s hackles had been on end ever since leaving their apartment. She wasn’t all that worried about herself, she could shrug off a few bullets if need be, but Glimmer…Catra shook her head. Glimmer had her magic and knew how to use it. That would have to be enough.

“They’re not here,” Glimmer said when they arrived at their rendezvous, an alley a few blocks from the club. “This was the time, right?”

“Wait for the most dramatic moment.”

“Oh, you’re no fun at _all_ ,” came Double Trouble’s voice from above them. They twisted and flipped down from a fire escape on one building and landed with an exaggerated flourish. “What’s life without a little drama?”

“Calm,” Catra said flatly. “If I want drama I’ll watch television.”

She turned away from the heat generated when they assumed the shape of a human Catra hadn’t seen before. “I took the liberty of relieving a bouncer of his keys, we’ll go in the back way so the doorman doesn’t see you,” they said, and led the way farther down the alley. “I made a sweep earlier, there’s a false wall in the basement. You’ll have to make yourselves inconspicuous while I get a headcount so you’ll know what you’re facing. Blend in, don’t make a show.”

“First time I’ve ever heard that from you,” Catra said. Glimmer nudged her arm. “I mean, right. Inconspicuous.”

Catra winced at the dull thud of house music coming from inside the club and wished that she had brought some plugs for her ears, tucked carefully under her hair. Double Trouble unlocked a door at the back of the building and followed them inside to a tiny storage area. It let out into a back hallway near the restrooms, where they slipped past the patrons and out to the main area. “I’ll come and get you later,” Double Trouble said, and disappeared into the crowd. At least, that was what Catra thought they said. It was hard to make out anything over the bass thrumming down to her bones.

The club was too loud, too hot, and much too crowded. Catra was uncomfortably reminded of the temporary shelters she had been shuffled through after her so-called parents had been arrested. Her ears pounded painfully, and she could already feel the beginnings of an awful headache. She reached out for Glimmer’s hand and laced their fingers together. Her tail, confined as it was in her pants leg, flicked happily at the contact.

Glimmer turned to her and said _something_ that the music drowned out, then pantomimed a dancing motion and pointed to the middle of the main room. Catra nodded and let Glimmer guide her to the dance floor. The crush of bodies on all sides dampened the music somewhat, enough to hear the occasional shout from nearby. “I hate clubs,” Catra said, and couldn’t hear herself.

The tiny bubble of room they had didn’t leave enough space for anything Adora might have called dancing—a waltz, pasodoble, maybe the foxtrot if she was feeling silly—but Glimmer wasn’t interested in anything so formal. She planted her hands on Catra’s hips and pulled her closer, grinding rhythmically to the ceaseless bass beat still rattling through them. Well, this was easy enough to follow. Catra grabbed Glimmer’s waist in turn and leaned toward her, close enough to smell the faint sheen of sweat starting to bead up on her forehead. After all her time away, each new bit of sensation that was Glimmer was thrown into such sharp relief that it was almost painful. Painful how much Catra needed her. She leaned forward a bit more, mouth watering as she looked at her usual feeding spot. Her muscles tensed, fingers tightening on Glimmer’s waist. She looked up, concerned, then slowly pitched her head to the side, giving Catra a better view—and unfettered access. Her fangs poked at her lower lip. No, she couldn’t do this, not here, not now. Could she? All the people around them were lost in their own worlds, and it would only look like a hickey if anyone did start paying attention. Fuck, _fuck_ , she was starving. Her whole body shook. Just a little, no one would notice if she was quick…

A shock of something cold on her arm snapped Catra out of her blood haze. She wheeled around, snarling, and came face to face with Double Trouble’s latest bit part, lacking any appearance of contrition as they finished spilling the last drops of beer from a plastic cup on Catra’s sleeve. “Whoops! Sorry about that,” they said when the music lulled. “Let’s go get you cleaned up, shall we?”

Catra took Glimmer’s hand, growling in frustration as the music kicked up again. Double Trouble led them back toward the restrooms, then ducked behind another door without missing a beat. Inside was a small landing at the top of a flight of stairs, poorly lit, and a larger storage area below. The door, thankfully, was soundproofed, and the bass faded almost to nothing when Glimmer closed the door behind her. Double Trouble motioned them down the stairs. “I took care of the lookout, and there are seven in the back room behind some fake construction equipment,” they said. Catra looked around at the base of the stairs and saw an unmoving pair of legs behind a crate. “Three for each of you, and you can even make the last one a fun couple’s activity.”

“You’re not going to help us?” Glimmer asked.

“Me? No. I’m a lover, not a fighter. That lookout was about as much as I can do.”

“Aren’t you supposed to keep us safe?”

They turned around and returned to their regular body. Catra winced from the heat. “Darling, you have magic. Kitten here has claws. I have a _tail_ , and shapely though it may be, it’s less help than you’d think in a straight fight.”

“Shapeshifting _is_ magic, and you have claws right this second,” Catra said dryly.

“No more questions! Tell you what, I’ll get the door for you. And then I’ll shut it real tight behind you and keep it sealed until you finish the job.” They stopped at an innocuous section of wall where a pile of power tools and pieces of drywall were pushed together. Catra looked a little closer and saw the tools were all props, no more than plastic and stuck together to make a single solid piece. Double Trouble grabbed the handle of a fake rotary saw and put their thumb over the power switch. “Seriously, good luck. I can do a cheer routine out here if you want. You know, for moral support.”

“I’m starting to see what you mean,” Glimmer said.

Catra closed her eyes, let her ears pop out of her hair, and focused on whatever was beyond that hidden door. Footsteps and voices, muffled. There must have been more soundproofing. Good, she could make some noise in there. The smells—ordinary human scents, but also a sharp, pungent saltiness. Niter. Gunpowder. Her fur bristled under her jacket as she shrugged it off. “I can do this on my own,” Catra said. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Glimmer folded her arms and disappeared in a flash of light, only to reappear a moment later with her staff. “And I don’t want you fighting all my battles for me. Don’t worry, I won’t lose too much blood.”

“Don’t lose _any_ ,” Catra said, and kissed her quickly. She crouched, ready to strike. “Do it.”

Double Trouble unhooked a hidden latch and yanked hard. A portion of the wall swung away on hinges and Catra tore in, fangs bared. The first one, straight in front of her, hadn’t even turned around when Catra pounced and bashed the back of his head. He was out before he hit the floor, but she didn’t stop. Catra jumped to the next one as Glimmer rushed in behind her, firing off a bolt of magic at one of their targets. The door closed securely behind them.

Someone slashed at her with a knife, shaving away a section of fur before sliding harmlessly against her skin. Catra countered with her claws, sinking three into her attacker’s wrist before a howl of pain rang through the room. Her would-be assailant dropped to the ground, letting her shift her focus to a third. She grabbed him by the collar and clapped his ears as she looked around the room. Glimmer swung her staff like a bat at the head of one of the goons, then jabbed him in the gut with the end when he was dazed and fired another magic bolt to put him on the ground.

Catra tossed the unconscious body she was holding at the knife-wielding goon, knocking him to the floor again, and leapt at one of the others trying to get to a pistol sitting on a cabinet at the back of the room. He swung around and smashed his fist into Catra’s face, hard enough that it knocked her off-course and sent her tumbling over herself behind Glimmer. She sprang back up, intending to launch herself again, but she wasn’t faster than a bullet. It glanced off her thigh, ripping through her slacks and leaving a dark plume of what little blood she still had. Her ears hurt more than anything, ringing from the gun’s sharp report, while her other leg compensated for the additional weight as she shifted.

The next shot went wide, digging into the wall behind her, and Catra took her chance. She was on him in a blur, knocking the pistol from his hand and twisting it to uselessness before striking him in the temple with the butt of the grip. He fell to his knees, eyes glassing over, then slumped down. Catra turned her nose up at the stink of his blood, then swiftly descended on the one with the knife and cracked him across the jaw. “Glimmer?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She wrapped one fist in swirling violet energy and made sure the one on the ground in front of her was staying down. “That’s three here.”

“Yeah, same. Ah.” Catra rubbed at her ears to quell the insistent ringing, then knocked one of the desks aside and found the last human trying to hide out of sight. She grabbed his collar and lifted him until his feet were off the ground. He yelped and jerked against her grip, but his thrashing only managed to irritate Catra’s leg wound. “And then there was one.”

“Please—please don’t kill me!” he said, grasping at Catra’s wrist to try and pull himself up.

“That’s up to you. Be useful and I’ll think about letting you live. Do you want to do this, or should I?” Catra asked.

“I’ll do it.” Glimmer walked slowly over to them, dragging the end of her staff along the floor to make magical sparks fly from it. “The angel you put in the hospital last month. What were you going to do with her?”

“What? Angel? I-I don’t know about any angel, I swear! I don’t!”

The fear in his voice didn’t account for the pitch change Catra heard. At least this one wasn’t a _good_ liar. “I’d suggest you think a little harder, before my girlfriend here decides to teleport you to the middle of the ocean.” She lowered him, just enough for his feet to touch the floor, then lifted him again. “It’s not a quick death, drowning. Neither is being bled dry. So should we ask again?”

He looked between them, weighing his options. His heart was beating so fast. Catra made a point of flashing her fangs. “Okay, okay…these guys from out of town, they hired us to kidnap that angel. She wasn’t supposed to get shot, that’s the truth! They were only paying us to grab her. But only one guy came back, he said some vampire tore the others apart.”

“And what were you supposed to do with her once you had her?” Glimmer asked.

“Take her to some warehouse across the water, in Bayonne. Ingham Avenue and Pier Street. That was where they were supposed to be waiting.”

Glimmer prodded him in the side with her staff. “Who was waiting? Who hired you?”

“I don’t know, they only dealt with our boss and that vampire already killed him!” He kicked uselessly into empty air. “I told you everything, let me go!”

To his clear surprise, Catra dropped him. He was straightening up when Glimmer grabbed his arm and got him in the jaw. Now that they were clear, Catra clutched at the wound on her leg and went to rap on the door as Glimmer took some rope from a hook on the wall. “We’re done in here, you can open up. Is there a first aid kit around there?”

“How do I know someone’s not making you say that with a gun to your head?” Double Trouble asked through the door. “Well, maybe not _your_ head. It’s too thick. Your girlfriend’s head.”

“I swear you annoy me like someone’s paying you…”

The door swung open as Glimmer finished tying up one of their hapless victims. “All right. We should have brought a car, walking across the bay would take too long.”

“Mine’s outside. Here.” Double Trouble returned with a simple wall-mounted first aid kit. Catra pulled the lid off and rooted around for some disinfectant and gauze to wrap her leg. “And what do you plan on doing with all of them?”

“I’m sure you have an idea,” Catra said. They stepped into the hidden room and helped Glimmer finish binding and gagging everyone.

“It’ll have to do for now. I’ll come back later and clean this up. It’s too bad, I wanted to dance for a bit…well. Come on, let’s make a quick exit.”

Catra growled as the car pulled away from the curb and headed for the main road. It wasn’t the scent she was used to, but the smell of the blood still clinging to her knuckles was starting to affect her, starting to make her hungry again…she drummed her fingers on her leg. Her first thought was to reach out to Glimmer, to move toward her steadying influence, but Glimmer was staring out the window, hands balled into fists. Dead to the world apart from her thoughts of revenge. “We should loop Adora in about where we’re going,” Catra said, and tapped out a message when Glimmer nodded. She laid her hand on Glimmer’s fist until it relaxed. “You all right? I know it was intense back there.”

“Is all that—” Glimmer waved behind them— “going to come back to haunt us? Because they definitely saw our faces.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Double Trouble said. “They’ll be seen here and there for a while. Long enough to talk about going away to take care of a sick relative or meet a friend from out of town about an investment. No one will miss them…because no one will know they’re missing.”

Catra couldn’t believe that she actually preferred Double Trouble’s usual behavior to their cold professionalism.

The streets were nearly empty by now, and they were able to speed across the bridge in no time at all. Double Trouble parked two blocks from the building in question to let them out, where Catra was suddenly forced to match Glimmer’s sprint toward the warehouse. “Hey—hey!”

She only managed to slow Glimmer down by grabbing at her shoulder. “What?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, okay? We have no idea what’s in there. I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”

Glimmer tugged her arm away and started walking again. “I’m not going to spill any of your precious blood,” she muttered. Catra frowned, rolled back and forth on her heels, then followed.

There was an insistent buzz from an electrical substation nearby and the constant lap of waves against the dock, but what gave Catra pause was what she _didn’t_ hear; namely, anything from the warehouse they were approaching. It was absolutely silent. Not a sound to be heard, not a light to be seen.

A large cargo door was ajar on one wall, showing a deep, consuming darkness beyond. Glimmer illuminated the end of her staff, but Catra nudged it aside and pointed at her eyes. “Oh, right. Magicat,” Glimmer said.

Even with her night vision, Catra was hard-pressed to make out anything in the utter blackness that seemed to swallow up everything. She crept along the wall, feeling her way around, until her hand closed around a switch handle. When she’d braced herself, Catra threw the switch, making rows and rows of fluorescent lights blaze to life on the ceiling. Glimmer jumped through the doorway with a shout, but when Catra looked around, she didn’t see anyone to attack.

She didn’t see anything at all. The space was completely empty. Bare gray floors stretched all the way to the far wall, without so much as a storage crate anywhere. An office in one corner looked similarly desolate. “What the hell?” Glimmer said, taking a few steps into the warehouse. “What the hell!”

Despite their best efforts, no secret rooms or trapdoors revealed themselves. It was, as near as Catra could tell, an ordinary warehouse that had been thoroughly doused with bleach. Some parts of the floor were discolored from it, and the remains of it stung her nose. She thought there were traces of blood as well, but she couldn’t be sure if it was from the warehouse or their clothes. Double Trouble strolled in eventually, when Glimmer had slumped against the wall in defeat.

“Well…probably for the best. You two look exhausted already.” They examined the light switch, running one finger along the edge. “Run along, I’ll do some more digging. Go on, shoo. You’re contaminating my scene.”

Catra went to Glimmer and offered her hand. “Come on. It’s been a long night.”

“Yeah.” She stood on her own before taking Catra’s arm, wrapping them both in violet light. “Yeah.”

One cold, snapping sensation later and they were home, away from danger, away from prying eyes. Glimmer slumped into Catra’s chest, worn down from the long distance they’d traveled. She shuddered and bit back a whimper. “Hey, it’s all right,” she said, and stroked Glimmer’s back. “They’re actually pretty good at this. We should hear something soon.”

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Glimmer mumbled into Catra’s chest.

“Don’t worry about it. I was going to grab a shower, unless you wanted to jump in first?”

“No, I just want to lie down for a while.”

Catra gathered up some nightclothes while Glimmer flopped down on their bed, then ducked into the bathroom. The hot water beat down her chest as she watched a few flecks of drying blood fall from her hands and swirl down the drain. She sighed and scrubbed the fur on her face. It wasn’t the first time she’d needed to be violent, and she wasn’t going to lose sleep over such fine upstanding citizens, but she knew they needed to resolve this.

She shut the tap and toweled off before stepping out, only to notice that the clothes she’d left on the vanity were gone. Catra groaned. Walking around naked was for the summer, and it was very definitely not summer.

“Did you take my clothes?” Catra asked as she padded out of the bathroom and let her hair out of its bun. “I want my flannel, Glimmer—oh.”

Glimmer had taken at least her shirt, and it was now on her instead, the sleeves hanging too long on her arms and the front falling open below her hips, where she had donned a rather elaborate harness that held one of their toys in place. “Oh,” she said again.

“Want to help me work off some frustration?”

All the energy she thought she’d burned already came rushing back. Catra leaned against the door frame to hide how she rubbed her legs together. “I guess Adora gave you a few ideas,” she said, studying the way her shirt hugged Glimmer’s body.

“Mm, maybe one or two. Come here, kitten.”

She finally hit the right note with that, halfway between endearment and condescension. Catra slowly closed the distance between them, trying not to betray her eagerness, and let Glimmer pull her into her lap. What rare form she was in, so obviously taking the reins like this. One hand stroked down Catra’s back, making her arch out of reflex while the length of the toy rested against her stomach, and the other slipped between her legs to brush along the sensitive fur there. Catra gripped at Glimmer’s shoulders as she pushed her hips forward, letting Glimmer rock back and forth against her. Glimmer drew her fingers away, too soon, and reached behind Catra’s legs to pull her upward. The sweet, blissful fullness when she sank back down made her suck in a breath just to gasp, and her hands shook as she pushed her shirt off Glimmer’s shoulders.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Glimmer took her time, canting her hips back and forth as she pulled Catra into kiss after kiss, never quite going fast enough to answer the coiling spool of arousal in Catra’s core, winding tighter and tighter without coming close to snapping. She had to remember to let Glimmer take the lead more often if this was what she was going to do with it. Catra tried to grind out a little more, arms wrapped tight around Glimmer’s chest, until she tapped Catra’s leg. “Hungry?” she asked when they broke their kiss, and pitched her head to one side to expose the crook of her shoulder. “Because it sure looked that way earlier…”

A tingling jolt of arousal snaked through Catra. Mixing business with pleasure had its fair share of risks, but if they had ever needed a good wind-down, it was now. Her tongue slid over Glimmer’s skin as she continued moving, tasting the trickle of sweat there, before her fangs sank in. Both of them trembled, almost falling over in their excitement, before the first drops of blood beaded up. Catra lapped at her, lost to the world. Now she knew why they weren’t supposed to do this. How could she ever want to do anything else?

Glimmer pushed her hips up as Catra was coming down, and there was nothing she could do—nothing she _wanted_ to do—to stop the climax that raced through her, setting her whole body ablaze as she pulled her fangs away to seal the puncture wounds. Her arms and legs shook uncontrollably as Glimmer held her tight, still pushing into her as they fell down onto the bed, bound to one another, luxuriating, weaving themselves tighter together with each long kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

One of the few things Catra missed about her mortal life was being able to curl up in a sunny spot and sleep for hours. It did nothing to play against stereotypes, certainly, but it was very hard to care about such things when there was a warm bar of light streaked across her back and side. She supposed that she could still do it if she really wanted, but she was young by vampire standards and more than a few decades off from being able to sit in the sun without prickling in discomfort or seeing her skin smoke after several minutes.

Now, though, she was considering doing just that. At least it would break the monotony.

Glimmer’s idea for how to spend the afternoon consisted of sitting around the apartment, watching her phone for any kind of update about the investigation into her mother’s would-be abductors. Catra didn’t begrudge her the preoccupation, she wanted new information about it too, but lying about, strung tight with impatient expectation, was a fair bit more wearying than lying about and doing nothing. Still, it wasn’t as if she could tell Glimmer to buck up and try to get her mind off it. This was supportive girlfriend time, she knew that.

“Something to eat?” Catra asked, shifting positions on the couch for the third time in as many minutes. The television was on, muted, shining dimly in the corner and throwing some light on Glimmer, sprawled over the loveseat that faced the kitchen. She shook her head, still watching her phone on the end table. “Come on, you haven’t had breakfast. I’ll make you an egg.”

“Not hungry.”

“I know you hate sitting around here not knowing what’s happening, but there has to be _something_ —”

Both of their phones went off. Glimmer seemed to be trying not to make a satisfied expression, but Catra still had to bite her tongue as she dug around in her pocket.

_Fucking Annoying Elf [18:38]: Evening, darlings! Did I wake you? I found your people out here in the boonies. They move around a lot, so you’ll have to be quick before they pack up again._

_Catra [18:39]: Send the address_

_Fucking Annoying Elf [18:39]: You know, a thank-you kiss wouldn’t be out of line here. I won’t even bite, kitten. Unless you ask me to._

“Not even two minutes of dealing with them and they’re already jumping up and down on my last nerve like a trampoline,” Catra muttered, resisting the urge to chuck her phone at the wall. Still, she hopped up along with Glimmer to finish getting dressed once the message with the address came through. “Look, I don’t normally trust cops or anything, but is this starting to seem a little…above our pay grade, you know? Maybe we could call in a tip or something like that.”

Glimmer paused in the middle of putting on her boots and looked up. “These people wanted my mom for something. I can’t find out what it was if they disappear into some police station and then get released on a technicality. If you don’t want to go—”

“I said I was with you, didn’t I? Just don’t want us getting in over our heads.”

“You don’t think a vampire and a magus can take care of themselves?”

Catra found the thump in her heart acutely distressing after not feeling anything of the sort for a long time. Somehow she knew all the things she wanted to say would simply bounce off Glimmer’s determination to see this through, knew that the most she could do was be there to protect her as best she could. “I’ll drive.”

Her driving speed wasn’t anywhere near fast enough for Glimmer’s taste, a critique she repeated at least twice as Catra navigated them off the island and out of the city. “No one should drive here, there’s too much traffic,” she said under her breath when they slowed down ahead of the northernmost bridge crossing. Glimmer lapsed into silence when she wasn’t nudging Catra to speed up on the dark roads, staring out the window or fixing the focusing gem atop her staff.

“Is this it?” Glimmer asked when they pulled off an empty road that didn’t have so much as a streetlight. The dashboard clock had it almost at midnight.

“GPS says this is the address. Double Trouble wasn’t kidding about this being the boonies, we have to be nearly at the border by now…I _think_ that’s a turnoff up there? It’s the only thing around here that isn’t more road or trees.” Catra moved the car up at a creeping pace, crunching over snow. “Yeah, there are lights past the tree line. Last chance not to go in guns blazing.”

“Do we have guns?”

“Glimmer…”

She rested her hand in Catra’s lap. “I’ll get us out of there if it’s too much, I promise.”

“Focus on getting _you_ out of there if it comes to that. I’m basically bulletproof and you’re not,” Catra said. She shut the car off, then pinged Adora with their location, just in case. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

The warehouse wouldn’t have seemed out of place in an industrial district, but as it was, in the middle of upstate nowhere…Catra’s fur stood on end as they drew closer, using the trees as cover until they abruptly ended two hundred feet from the building. Despite the spotlights and the perimeter fence topped with barbed wire, Catra couldn’t see anyone around the building or up on the roof. The fence was no impediment, she pulled the chain links apart like so much wet paper, but she had no wish to get caught in the lights sweeping over the bare ground. “This is where I come in,” Glimmer said, and took her hand. One slightly disorienting _pop_ later, they were against the outer wall, spotlights safely behind them. The lights themselves were on motors, Catra saw when she looked up, and whoever was controlling them was probably on the other end of the cameras pointed toward the main gate.

_Catra [00:02]: We’re here. Come open a door or something._

_Fucking Annoying Elf [00:03]: Southwest corner door_

They crept around the perimeter until they found the indicated door, propped open with a brick. Catra poked her head in to look around. This warehouse looked to still be in use, with a number of shipping containers stacked in neat rows under buzzing lights. She heard the triple thump of an elven heartbeat nearby—not exactly what she would expect in a place like this. “Are you disguised as a container drum or something?” Catra asked.

“You know very well that I’m limited to living creatures.” Double Trouble stepped out from behind a shipping crate nearby. “Took your sweet time getting here, didn’t you? Where’s—ah, there’s your girl. Is the cavalry waiting in the forest or something?”

“We _are_ the cavalry. Us and you,” Catra said. They opened their mouth to protest when Catra put a finger over their lips and made sure to extend her claw enough to poke at their skin. “Ah, ah. You help, or no hazard pay for little Mx. Double Trouble.”

Their tail flicked as Glimmer looked around from behind a stack of pallets. “Whatever you say, kitten.” They took on an unfamiliar face, probably whatever human goon they’d replaced here. “It’s this way, there’s a lift hidden in one of the containers that goes down to a lab. You might still be able to catch them by surprise.”

Catra and Glimmer followed them to the middle of the warehouse, to the only shipping container outfitted with an electronic lock, and pulled the door back to show a simple lift platform. “How many of them are there?” Glimmer asked as they got on it.

“Twenty, twenty-three, something like that.” The lift trundled downward. “It’s all compartmentalized down there, you can go from room to room. Still, risky, isn’t it? Just the two of you.”

“Three of us,” Catra corrected.

The lift stopped at one end of a corridor that branched off on either side to narrower hallways. Elsewise the only other interruptions in the plain, slate-gray walls were the occasional pipes and large panes of frosted glass that allowed light to pass through to other spaces but nothing more. Catra took a tentative step off the lift. The place seemed terribly still for supposedly still being in use. “Where is everyone?”

“Working. These people, Despondos, they’re very professional.” Catra moved up the corridor with Glimmer a step behind her. “It’d be impressive if they didn’t want us all dead. Still, quite the operation. They pay well. And up front.”

Every hair on the back of Catra’s neck went up. She whirled around as the supposed pipes on either side of them let out a high-pitched, electric whine. “Fu—”

Her muscles all went rigid, pulling in painful, contradictory directions. She seized, catching her tongue between her teeth as her fur began to smoke. Glimmer tried to scream, but she didn’t manage anything more than a single gurgle, barely audible over the crackle of the electrical field. Her skin glowed violet, then went black for an instant as she seemed to short out. She dropped, reaching for Catra as she too went down, still spasming from the overload. Suddenly her heart was beating out of all control, firing at a breakneck pace and forcing adrenaline into her system.

There was a rush of footsteps. Orders shouted. Guns chambering rounds. Catra hissed and rasped for breath as Double Trouble came up behind her. “It’s nothing personal, kitten. You know I always have to be on the lookout for better offers. Maybe one day we’ll all go out for drinks and have a good laugh about this, hmm?”

“ _Fuck you_.” The words were a struggle. Catra tried to kick out at them, but Double Trouble grasped her leg to hold it in place. “I’ll fucking kill you…”

“Come on, don’t be like that. They paid so well for two blood banks.”

The muscles in Catra’s face were still twitching too much to look incredulous. “Oh, wait. You’re a vampire now. Did I neglect to mention that to them? Silly me.”

They walked back to the lift. Catra turned her head to the other end of the hall. They’d get theirs eventually, slowly and painfully, but she had more immediate concerns in the form of a dozen armed humans moving cautiously toward her and Glimmer—

 _Glimmer_.

She looked to the side. Movement was getting easier now, they must have regulated the voltage for two mortals. Glimmer was completely out, lying face-down with one hand extended toward Catra. Little wisps of smoke rose from her hair, curling around random sparks of magical energy jumping off her body. Catra’s jaw clenched until her own fangs were almost pressing at the backs of her lips. She gave her fingers and toes a testing flex. There was an errant twitch in one shoulder, but otherwise she had her motor control back. She stilled again.

“She’s only a demiangel, that’s not what they wanted.”

“It’ll have to do. Maybe the data will be useful, at least.”

“What about that one? The cat?”

Someone kicked Catra in the side of the head. “Take it apart, run its blood. See if we can isolate a venom extract. If not…that’s still one less bloodsucker without its meal. Go on, get her up. Where’s that anti-magic collar?”

Two of them slung their weapons back to reach down and haul Glimmer to her feet. Catra’s lips curled back until her fangs were completely bared, and her vision began to red out. She felt her muscles moving without giving them commands. She heard screams. She tasted blood.

Catra came to on the floor in a room she didn’t recognize, almost choked with the sickly-sweet coppery stench of blood in the air. Her eyes focused on an unfamiliar ceiling streaked every which way with red. Something soft and wet rested in her hand. She tossed it aside and sat up so she could look around.

“Oh,” Catra said. Her voice was hoarse.

She was surrounded by bodies—or what had been bodies—in a dreary little office lit by flickering fluorescent lights. Everything was sore, and her head was beginning to pound. Catra rubbed at her mouth and saw a smear of red on her palm when she drew it away. The smell of blood was so omnipresent that she had to stop breathing to keep from being overwhelmed. She got to shaky feet and wanted nothing more than to lie back down and submit to the exhaustion trying to pull her under. As it was, she knew staying here wasn’t an option. Catra stumbled out of the office and into the hall, trying very hard not to look down at whatever she was ankle-deep in.

Bullet holes riddled the floor, walls, and ceiling, fired from guns that now lay twisted to uselessness. This looked familiar…right. They were somewhere upstate, hunting. She batted away a broken light that was hanging by a single frayed wire and picked up her pace, almost running toward Glimmer’s prone form, still laying where she had fallen. Her hair wasn’t smoking any longer, thankfully. Catra dropped to her knees and carefully turned Glimmer onto her side so she could dip down and listen for a heartbeat. It was slow, irregular—but there. Her exhaustion suddenly seemed less important.

Catra picked Glimmer up and cradled her against her chest as she trudged to the elevator. “You still in there, babe?” she asked as they started upward. Glimmer was silent but for her shallow breathing. At least she _was_ breathing. “Yeah…yeah, I can feel you. Just rest. I’ll pull that fucking elf apart myself.”

The warehouse’s ground floor was abandoned. Even when Catra set Glimmer down and listened, she heard nothing but the motors on the lights outside. Of course they wouldn’t stick around. She fished her phone from her pocket. Almost one in the morning. Her claw kept tapping against the touchscreen as she dialed.

“Catra.” Adora didn’t sound surprised to be hearing from her. “How is everything?”

“Does a bloodbath qualify as _bad_?” Her throat still hurt.

“What happened?”

“Your elf buddy sold us out to these pricks. And now they’re all dead, so there’s no way to figure out if this was as high as it went. It’s bad here. I’ve got more blood on me than in me right now.”

“Oh, dear…you’re not hurt? What about Glimmer?”

“She took the electric shock harder than I did, but she’s breathing. Her heart’s beating. Seriously, next time I see them I’m feeding them their own tail—”

“Your colorful descriptions notwithstanding, I’ll handle that. Stay where you are. I’ll have some of our people there shortly. Scorpia will be happy to fly up and see you both home safely.”

“Please, _anyone_ else,” Catra said, but the line cut out. She shuffled her way to where she had left Glimmer, lying on her side in the shadow of a shipping container, and pulled Glimmer into her lap once she sat down. Her eyes could barely stay open, but now she refused to fall asleep. All Catra could do was sit there, keeping Glimmer close, and stare blankly at the far wall. Even when Scorpia nearly broke down the door with a response team behind her some hours later, Catra only held Glimmer tighter until she began to stir.

⁂

“Please, _anyone_ else,” Catra was saying, but Adora ended the call without responding. She swirled a glass of Bow’s latest offering and flicked through the camera feeds on her tablet, focusing on Catra as she sank against one of the containers in the warehouse. Another flick and she was looking at the carnage on the level below, at the bits and pieces strewn about and torn with such force that the floor no longer looked properly gray. Adora clicked her tongue and tapped out a message to whatever dispatcher was on the overnight shift at the office: _Panther, Warlock // Response requested – Medical (Demiangel, Felis Vampire) // Expedite // Authority: Palatine // Location to follow_.

There was that taken care of. She downed the rest of her drink and stretched out on the couch. Sometimes this seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. Still, it was hardly as if she could go pulling the plug now.

Her phone rang. Yellow eyes stared at her from the screen. “I hear you’ve been bad, taking offers from competitors while you’re under contract. That won’t get you a good reference.”

“As opposed to following your circuitous orders?” Double Trouble asked. It sounded like they were driving, and fast. “I played the turncoat to perfection, thank you very much. You _are_ going to tell her that this was all your idea, aren’t you? Soon, preferably? I like moving around because I want to, not because I have to. An angry immortal cat doesn’t really jive with my fifty-year plan.”

“It’s in hand. And you can pull over, they’re staying put. I don’t need you getting a ticket and leaving a paper trail.” Gravel crunched under tires as they slowed and moved off the road. “Now, the other part of your assignment?”

“I scraped everything I could from their network, it should all be in your inbox by now. Lots of references on their intranet to someone named ‘Prime’, must be their boss…no points for creativity. Most of their traffic pings back to an address east of you.”

“That’s everything I needed to know, thank you. Come back here, no sense shadowing them all the way to the hospital,” Adora said. “I have to pay you promptly before Catra can track you down. Let yourself in if I’m not back when you arrive, I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

“Indulge my curiosity? Why do all this? Not that I don’t enjoy the melodrama, but even I know when it’s getting to be a bit much.”

Adora sighed and held her phone against her shoulder as she stared up at the ceiling. Sometimes it was so difficult to put her thought process into words. Not that she owed them an explanation, but at least it could help her make up a script when Catra demanded answers. “I needed them to understand the kind of life they’re walking into,” she said. “It’s one thing to lecture and teach and warn, but I know Catra doesn’t respond to any of that. This was sooner than I would have liked, especially with this much danger…but then these wastes of space presented themselves. That’s our life, isn’t it?”

“ _Your_ life, maybe.”

“Well, they know now. The danger of it all, without any of the dramatics—other than yours. And now that Catra knows what it’s like to completely lose it, she can feel it coming on and hopefully head it off next time without anyone important being hurt. Without Glimmer being hurt. Her mother would chase me for a thousand years if it was my turnling that harmed her. It’s better this way, isn’t it? A controlled environment. Call it a live-fire test.  Hopefully it’ll never come up again. But if it does, when it does, at least they won’t be helpless if I’m not there.”

Double Trouble was silent for an interminably long moment. How unlike them. Adora’s heart actually beat in the interim. “How long have we known each other?” they asked.

“Depends which calendar we use…it was a bit after that eruption, so fourteen? Fourteen hundred years? Some of it gets hazy.”

“That’s close enough. A long time, even for us. So I hope you believe me when I say that even for you, even among all the questionable decisions you’ve made, this is cold. I really can’t think of anything comparable.”

“We both know that’s not true. Drive safe,” Adora said, and hung up.

She allowed herself a few minutes to play back the conversation in her head to see if it held up to scrutiny. Maybe it wasn’t a talk she would need to have with them in the first place. Adora shook her head. No, that was enough deception. But it would keep for a few days, at least until they were both cleared by the medical staff. And she had things to do in the meantime.

Her inbox was filled nearly to bursting with intercepted data when she checked it. Adora put on some bergamot tea for the scent and began sifting through it at the kitchen table, writing down bits of information that seemed to come up again and again. That done, it was a simple matter of checking the most recent timestamps to see what was still being used, and then a few public information searches. “Right in my backyard,” Adora said as she looked at a satellite image of an estate on the bay nearby. “We can’t have that.”

She changed out of her robe into something more sensible, made sure the front door was unlatched, then picked up her keys before deciding against the car. The police were so good at closing the roads now. Instead she opened the living room window, oriented herself eastward, and leapt out.

The night was so lovely, Adora thought, without a shred of moonlight shining down from the sky. Everyone still out on the streets far below looked so tiny. Ants scurrying this way and that. She wondered if she would look much the same up here to them, if they could see her. The next high-rise came up quickly, and she touched down at the edge before breaking into a run. When she was out of ground, Adora drew in and launched herself, clearing nearly half the river before gravity began tugging at her again. The taller buildings were few and far between out in the suburbs once she had cleared the city’s sprawl, forcing her to be more careful to avoid crashing down through someone’s roof. Still, how freeing to be out hunting again. They were more civilized now. There were rules. But she still remembered how it had been before all of that.

Adora skulked for the last few blocks rather than jump all through the air, looking for anything that might have told her this was a simple proxy used to obfuscate a signal. The security wall and barbed wire made her think she had the right place, but there were plenty of paranoid rich people. She stole up to the gate at the end of the private driveway and tried the last code that had surfaced in the captured data. The gate trundled slowly out of the way.

She heard approaching footsteps almost immediately. Adora slipped into the compound and into a shadow between two perimeter lights as a pair of guards came from the main house, pistols in hand. They approached the gate, looking around for whatever had caused it to open, and then shut it again in the absence of any explanation. A glitch, one of them said. Adora darted forward and took him through the back of the neck. His friend whipped around, brandishing his gun. Adora tore his throat out. She plucked a radio from his belt before he fell, in time to hear someone demand an update. It crumpled and sparked in her hand.

Another pair of guards were rushing out when she approached the front door. One of them managed to squeeze off a shot that passed harmlessly by her side before she dashed his head against a stone column, but that was all it took. The gunshot’s report echoed through the mansion, sending everyone into a frenzy. To this group’s credit, they were good. Organized. Professional. It didn’t help them, but it was faintly impressive. Finally they stopped throwing people at her in a useless bid to kill her there in the foyer, instead drawing back to a deeper part of the estate to judge by the voices she overheard. Adora picked a bullet out of her arm and started up the stairs, nudging bodies out of her way as she did.

“Now let’s see, if I was going to hide in a place like this…”

She poked through each room she passed, all abandoned, as more guards came in groups of three or four to try and subdue her. It was rather annoying, how trigger-happy they were. The bullets didn’t do much of anything, but the sounds of the shots rang in her ears like the worst concert she’d ever heard. Adora rubbed one ear while swiping at the last guard from the most recent batch. His shoulder snapped under the force of her hand, but she stopped short of killing him. No sense in being inefficient. “Could you please tell me—stop screaming, it’s only your shoulder—where your boss is? This will be much less painful for you if you cooperate, I promise.”

He stank of fear. His blood would taste terrible now. Adora popped his shoulder back into place to stop his whimpering, but it only made him cry out harder. “Your boss, please. I doubt you’re getting paid to be this loyal.”

“Th-third floor! North wing!”

“Much obliged,” Adora said with a smile, and punched through his chest.

The guards had one last large swell at the next set of stairs, but by then they were panicking, making mistakes. Sloppy. Adora mentally retracted her feeling of being impressed. Only two of them managed to actually hit her, and then merely grazing blows. Besides the ringing in her ears, the estate was eerily calm when the last one fell into a pile of his own gore. Adora sat at the top of the landing for a moment to tug out a bullet that had lodged in her shin. “All right, then…north wing.”

She made a brief detour toward the sound of running computers, into an office with a slapdash server farm clustered into one corner. A note with login credentials was taped to one of the terminals. Adora clicked her tongue in disapproval. Still, she wasn’t going to pass up shoddy security if it helped her. She dumped as much data as she could to a single drive, then ripped apart everything else.

The estate’s north wing smelled too much of formaldehyde for her liking. She stopped breathing while she checked the rooms. Offices, bedrooms, a home cinema. No people. Either they had scattered when the first shots rang out or there were only guards here at this time of night.

Her ears stopped ringing long enough to hear a faint mechanical beeping. She followed it, stalking the halls, until she found a set of double doors she hadn’t yet tried. Adora pushed them open, fully expecting another shootout, an ill-fated last stand to cap off the evening, but there was no one waiting on the other side with an arsenal, or even a single gun.

That was disappointing.

What was once a bedroom had been converted into a one-patient hospital ward, complete with every sort of machine she might have expected to see in intensive care. Adora was uncomfortably reminded of Angella’s room, though this was far larger and contained only a single bed. The fellow in it…Adora grimaced. His face had gone an unnatural bone-white along with his hair, and what looked like a pair of extra eyes had sprouted above and below his right. It had been a long time since she’d seen something that could unsettle her, but this fit the bill.

His eyes—all four of them, she saw with a shiver—focused long enough to fix on Adora. She tapped at a line coming out of a saline drip bag and received a groan of protest. “I have to admit, the whole ‘Prime’ codename made me imagine someone a bit more statuesque. My mistake for letting my preconceived notions get the better of me. Now what, oh _what_ ,” Adora said as she sat on the side of the bed and leaned hard on his arm, “would you want with an angel? You went through so much trouble to get her, I imagine you had some plan. May I?”

Adora reached to the end of the bed and retrieved the chart clipped there to leaf through several pages. She shook her head. “Oh, that’s a painful way to go. Very painful, even with drugs. And not quick either. Let’s see what they did. Medicine, right. Didn’t work. Surgery—also didn’t work. What next? Oh, gene therapy, that’s creative. I’m guessing that’s where these—” Adora pointed at the extra eyes— “came from, am I right? But it didn’t work, either. That should have been the end of it, accepted your fate. Some people just don’t know when to throw in the towel, though.”

She stood and looked among all the medical equipment scattered around the room. “So instead of doing that, you thought you might try to get your hands on some angelic blood. Use a gang from the city to get the whole angel for good measure. You really should have had them all killed when they failed. Frankly, you should have had them killed either way, they’re how we found you.” Adora picked up an empty syringe. “If it’s any comfort, her blood wouldn’t have helped you. You’re human. Er, well, you used to be. It’s a non-starter if you don’t have angelic heritage to begin with. But there _is_ something that would do it.”

That made him try to sit up, though he was far too weak to do more than rustle ineffectually under his bedsheets. Adora pricked her lower gums with her finger and slipped the needle into the wound before it closed to extract some venom. She filled it halfway, then the rest for good measure, and stuck it into his central line. “You need about ten milliliters to turn someone into a vampire.” Adora stopped at that much, then pushed the plunger the rest of the way. “Any more than that, well…”

She watched the venom flow down the tube and disappear beneath a bandage in his arm. The weak breath accumulating on the inside of his oxygen mask quickened, first to a normal pace and then to a frantic one, as the first muscles to feel the venom’s effect in his arm and shoulder began to shake beneath his skin. Adora sat again, clasped his hand in hers, and let her eyes go red. “It would be a grisly scene, even for someone in perfect health.”

His heart was racing in his chest. For a moment the smell of sweat and adrenaline overpowered the sterile formaldehyde stench. He jerked around on the bed, arching his back, looking down at his chest as if he could stop the venom from reaching his heart by sheer will. Adora squeezed his hand tighter until the bones began to crack. “This really isn’t so horrible for someone who hurt my friends,” Adora said. She chuckled as his heart rate monitor began to go haywire. “I remember one time when these Spanish inquisitors whipped a false confession out of my neighbor, sweet old lady, I kept them alive for a week…are you even listening? Oh, right.”

The venom, altogether too much for even the most ideal candidate, began to heat his body from the inside out. Sizzling, cracking fissures appeared on his neck and face as everything beneath slowly liquefied. His legs kicked out in protest until the bones and connecting tissue had dissolved, leaving them laying limp under the sheets. One last rattling breath cut off as his lungs turned to useless bile. The heart rate monitor stopped its staccato in favor of a long, whining tone, and then silence.

Adora gently closed his eyes and disconnected all of the equipment. She pulled off the tops of the oxygen tanks and all the spares in one corner, then turned on the gas in a fireplace on the other side of the room. So late in the season, all of the windows were already closed, but she waited a few minutes for the gas to seep through the estate anyway. Once the whole place was nicely saturated, Adora rolled up a newspaper in the kitchen, jammed it in a toaster, and turned it to the highest setting before walking out.

She was twisting the main gate to immobility when the house went up, a great big fireball throwing light every which way. The prudent thing would have been to disappear then—or perhaps give herself more time to get away in the first place—but Adora couldn’t resist watching for a moment as the flames overran what walls remained standing after the initial explosion, withering everything as they licked blindly for fuel. “ _Iam seges est ubi Troia fuit_ ,” she said, and started back toward the city.

Once she was across the last bridge, Adora decided to walk the rest of the way. It was a pleasant enough night. A fire engine raced back the way she’d come. She turned her collar up and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets to make it look as if the cold bothered her as much as anyone else. The night doorman in her building did a double take when she walked in, having seen her arrive for a first time some hours before with no departure in the middle. Adora smiled at him as she boarded the elevator, but he only seemed unnerved. Oh. Of course. When she looked down, she saw that her jacket was covered with blood. “Whoops.”

Her apartment door was ajar when she arrived. Adora rolled her eyes. “A little courtesy, a little thoughtfulness,” she muttered as she closed the door behind her and shrugged off her jacket. There were sounds from within that seemed distinctly like fabrics moving against one another. “I thought I told you not to go rifling through my closet.”

“You tell me a lot of things—hello, what’s this? Gorgeous, that’s what. How’d you make out?”

“The investigation department will be very busy for a while. Oh, put that back, I wore it to three coronations.”

Double Trouble only wrapped themselves deeper into the ermine as they walked out of Adora’s bedroom. “Saxe-Coburg? Carolingian?”

“ _Justinian_ ,” Adora said.

They grimaced and tossed it back into the room. “Out of season, then. Ghastly bunch of arriviste Dardanians.” Adora tipped over the arm of her couch and fell face-first into the cushions. A clawed finger slid up the back of one thigh. “Long night, darling?”

“You could say that.” Adora let them sit her up on the couch so they would have some room to join her. “Someone was foolish enough to believe angelic blood would stave off death. How do these rumors even start?”

Double Trouble laid their legs over Adora’s lap and nudged her ribs with the tip of one boot. “Wishful thinking. So what’d you do?”

“Well, he seemed so desperate not to die, so I turned him. But I think I overdid the venom. I’m sure it’ll all be on the news in the morning,” Adora said, letting her head pitch back to look at the ceiling. “You don’t need to stare at me, I know you’re wanting your pay.”

She reached for her tablet on the coffee table and went to start a bank transfer. “Good work and all that. It’s truly an art, isn’t it?”

“It is. And art isn’t cheap,” Double Trouble said, rubbing their thumb and first finger together. Adora sighed and bumped the amount up before showing it to them. “Lovely doing business with you. Look me up in another decade, we’ll get mimosas.”

“Did you give any more thought to my offer? You’d be a great addition. I’d have to smooth things over with Catra and Glimmer, but I could really use someone like you.”

“Oh, I remember very well how you used me the last time.” Double Trouble turned around and laid their head in Adora’s lap to gaze up at her, tongue flitting out from between their lips. “Freelance is fine for me. The non-profit game just isn’t my thing, you know? But if there’s anything else you _need_ while I’m still on the clock…?”

Adora frowned as she looked at them, one finger idly tracing the line of their jaw. She knew she shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t, not when the comedown of waking up alone and back in this century was so acutely painful. It was the worst kind of torture, setting herself up for this disappointment whenever she dared to mix memory and reality. “I always hate myself for it afterward,” Adora said softly.

“That’s never stopped you before. But I _could_ be someone else this time, you know. Plenty of new faces. Your kitten? Maybe her new flame?” Heat surged into Adora’s lap as they changed their shape to Catra, then Glimmer. “It’s been how many years now? You must have found someone else who strikes your fancy after all this time. You could see what it’s like to be with you, some people are into that. Really, I don’t judge. I have to work on my version of you anyway, Catra saw through it pretty quick.”

Another bloom of heat. Her own face stared up at her from her lap, wearing Double Trouble’s smirk. “Or you could give me a shot. No adornments, no characters.” Now they were back to themselves, minus the usual bodysuit. “It’d be a first.”

“You know what I want. I’m a creature of habit, after all.”

The seriousness of their pout was somewhat undercut by the fact that they weren’t wearing a single scrap of clothing. Adora lightly stroked their hair. “This is bordering on typecasting, you know. I’m an artist, not a one-trick pony.”

“Are you done?”

“Oh, as you wish…one Vestal, coming up. Is the robe where it usually is?”

Adora nodded and leaned back to let Double Trouble hop up and slink off to the bedroom. She held her head in her hands. Why did she always do this to herself? Well, she knew the answer to that, she was an addict. And no matter how much the withdrawal would sting, she needed her fix. “Be careful, it’s not getting any more durable,” Adora said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Maybe you should just go. I’m always useless for days after we do this. And I don’t want Catra to get a hold of you—”

“Adora.”

She bit her lip. They had the voice down perfectly. Adora turned, slowly, and felt what was left of her heart crumble. Everything—the tone of the skin, the braid, the flash of gray in the eyes—was still exactly as Adora had described so many years before. Even the twin puncture marks in the crook of her shoulder were present. “Mara,” she said, almost choking on the name.

“Don’t wander too far down memory lane, all right?”

Far too late for that, Adora thought. Mara eased down into Adora’s lap and put one finger under her chin. The gown fit as well as ever, lovingly maintained and fixed where age had worn on it, and the fabric brushed against Adora’s throat as Mara leaned down to kiss her. She whimpered into the soft press against her lips. One hand tried to close around Mara’s thigh, stopped only by her last shred of good sense trying to keep the gown intact. Instead Adora slid her fingers over the nape of Mara’s neck, keeping her there even after they broke their kiss. “I missed you,” she said, slipping back into Latin. “I missed you so much…”

“Shh, shh. I’m here now.” Mara rested her forehead against Adora’s and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m here with you now, love. And we have all the time in the world. Won’t you take me to bed?”

Mara clung to Adora as she stood up, arms tucked under Mara’s legs and around the small of her back. She nuzzled Adora’s neck all the way to the bedroom, stopping only when she had to be set gently down to be disrobed. The fabric slid easily over her shoulders and fell to the floor, leaving her free to recline on the bed while Adora put the gown back in its case against the wall. She would have liked to have it out a bit longer, but the material was so delicate now. So fragile. Adora leaned against the case once it was shut tight and felt Mara press to her back. Her legs shook. “Let me take care of you,” Mara said, reaching forward to undo the buttons on Adora’s shirt. She turned around so they were face to face. Every newly freed flash of skin enjoyed a quick, light kiss, and Adora had to suck in a breath when her shirt hem came free and Mara knelt down to do away with her belt too.

“Don’t leave me this time,” she whispered, letting herself be guided to the foot of the bed to sit down. Mara tugged Adora’s shirt off and tossed it aside, then did the same with her trousers. She rested her cheek against Adora’s thigh.

“No, never, love. Never.”

Adora watched the easy way she tossed her braid over her shoulder, then swept up Mara in her arms and fell backward onto the bed with her. She was so warm. They gradually straightened out from their curled position, legs tangling together while Mara peppered kisses along Adora’s throat and collarbone. Her hands wandered at the same time, over Adora’s shoulders and arms, the swells of her breasts, the hard planes of her stomach, and beneath the waistband of her underwear. “I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of myself,” Adora said, looking down at the streaks and divots in her skin where the bullets had hit her.

“And it’s really me that should be making a mess of you, isn’t it?”

Mara nibbled at Adora’s ear as she slipped her fingers beneath Adora’s underwear. They moved lightly over the short line of blonde hair there before venturing further, one swirling in a slow circle around her clit. Adora pushed her hips up to meet the touch, biting at one knuckle and watching Mara’s knowing, half-lidded gaze.

“Just let go…”

Adora bunched up the bedsheets in her hands as Mara’s fingers worked, skirting closer and closer before backing off and starting again. Her hips bucked with each circuit, back arching and muscles straining until the night started catching up with her. Mara kissed up and down her arm and side all the while, not rushing one bit. One finger pressed slowly into Adora, then a second, curling forward and making her suck in a breath. She uttered a string of curses in every language she knew before circling back to her mother tongue, pleading for some kind of release before she exploded. Mara only looked back at her, the corner of her mouth quirked up in a small smirking smile, and rested the heel of her palm over Adora’s clit. The first jolt of pleasure when her hand moved shot up through Adora and nearly made every muscle slacken. Mara kept her there until there were tears pricking at her eyes. She sank into the bed, dropping the arch in her back, taking in deep breaths as her body twitched, helpless as it wound tight.

“Mara,” she said, the name spilling past her lips like an invocation. “Mara, _Mara_ —!”

The bedsheets tore in her hands as she crashed into her orgasm, lying in tatters while Adora shivered and shook. Her weak cry was silenced when Mara swept down on her, lips crashing, claiming, comforting. Adora’s legs still twitched and rattled the bed frame beneath them, but she ignored the aftershocks in favor of wrapping up Mara in her arms, loosening her grip only to allow Mara to withdraw her hand and lick it clean. “Do you feel better now?”

Adora nodded slowly.

“That’s my good girl.”

“Stay? Please? At least until the sun comes up,” Adora said. She flicked at Mara’s braid with one finger and tried not to look at her sorrowful expression. The next beat of her heart ached. “But that’s not how it works.”

“No…but I can make an exception.”

That was only going to make this hurt more, Adora knew. She knew it very well even as she pulled the remaining bedsheets over them and curled against Mara. It could hurt later. As long as it meant she could feel some measure of peace after so many centuries, then she could stand a little pain.


	9. Chapter 9

Adora drummed her fingers on her desk as she read the medical department’s reports, so quickly and forcefully that she was wearing a line of divots into the surface. Her eyes scanned the documents without really taking in anything. She knew what they said, she’d read them three times already. It occurred to her with an almost clinical, detached amusement that she was stalling because she was nervous. _Nervous_ hadn’t been a part of her life for a long time. She tapped the intercom. “Mermista, could you please send them in? Thank you.”

The doors at the other end of her office opened a few moments later. Catra filed in, followed by Glimmer, the latter still sporting a few bandages that poked out from underneath her sleeves. Both of them looked haggard, even after a week under observation. “Evening,” Catra said as she shut the door. Adora nodded to the cluster of chairs and couches in the corner as she stood. “What’s the deal? You never invite people up here. Are they cleaning the conference room or something?”

“I thought this would be more comfortable,” Adora said. She took a bottle of water from the wet bar and set it in front of Glimmer before taking the chair opposite them. “This debrief can’t even go in writing, a little more privacy seemed warranted. I’ve read the notes from medical, but how are you both doing? Physically, mentally?”

Glimmer took the water bottle but didn’t open it. “It’s hard to sleep. And even then it’s not restful. Sometimes my muscles spasm and wake me up, or I have nightmares of being electrocuted…”

She shivered and lapsed into silence. Adora nodded. “Catra?”

“Can’t get the smell of blood out of my nose.”

“It may feel like cold comfort now, but time and proper treatment will lessen those symptoms. I want psych to clear you both before you go back to work, take as long as you need. We’ll spread out your workloads to cause minimal disruption.” Adora reached for a pen on the end table and spun it around her finger. “I’m glad you’re both safe. Now comes the difficult part.”

Catra growled, tail flicking beside one leg. “Hunting down that elf? Hope you don’t mind if I use company resources, I’ll pay you back when I have their head in my hand.”

“You’re not going to do anything of the sort.”

She pushed on the arm of the couch and began to get up. “Oh yes I am—”

“I don’t need grandstanding right now. All I need is to know what happened, from both of you. Glimmer first, then you. If you wouldn’t mind stepping out for a moment, kitten?”

Her turnling shifted on the couch, clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of leaving Glimmer’s side, but ultimately gave her a quick peck on the cheek and stalked out of the office. Adora sighed. This had all been a serious miscalculation. “If you’re hungry, the cafeteria will bring something up,” Adora offered. Glimmer shook her head. “All right. So please tell me, to the best of your recollection, what happened that night.”

Glimmer needed a few moments to compose herself, and she stared down at her lap through her whole retelling. “We got a text from Double Trouble, they said they’d found the people who actually ordered my mom’s abduction. It was at an address upstate. Catra drove us there, it looked like a warehouse once we got inside. They showed us a hidden elevator to a basement that looked like a bunch of offices, and then…” Glimmer held her head in her hands. “The next part is fuzzy.”

“Just try your best.”

“Double Trouble said something, and I remember this heat all over my body. For a minute I couldn’t feel anything at all. Then the next thing I remember is Catra holding me in the warehouse when Scorpia and her people broke down the door. She smelled like blood. She was covered in it. But I didn’t want her to let go. They loaded us into the helicopter and brought us back here.”

Adora nodded. “You can stop there, thank you. That’s all I needed. I’m going to have medical set up some more appointments to deal with the aftereffects of your electrocution. Would you mind having Catra come back in and waiting outside? And please do try to eat something. Even if it’s from the vending machine down the hall.”

“Yeah.” Glimmer got up and went to the door. Her gait was slow and stiff, marked by her touching at her arms. Adora closed her eyes. She mentally upgraded her miscalculation from _serious_ to _dire_. “Your turn.”

She shuffled out as Catra came back in. Adora waited as she lounged across the couch and looked blankly at the ceiling, then turned away from Adora and curled into a ball. Her voice was muffled by the leather of the couch cushions. “What do you want to know?”

“Your version of events. You can start at the electrocution.”

“That fucking elf double-crossed us and led us into a trap. And then triple-crossed Despondos or whatever their name was by not telling them I was a vampire, so they didn’t put enough current in me to knock me out. I guess they wanted to keep us all busy while they got away.”

“Your speculation aside, what happened next?”

Catra’s tail wrapped over her waist. “I was still conscious. They wanted Glimmer’s blood, said it wouldn’t be as good as Angella’s but it might work.”

“And what did they want with you?” Adora asked.

“Just to kill me. To deprive some vampire of their next meal. They started reaching for Glimmer, and…”

“Go on.”

“This is stupid. You know what happened down there, Scorpia must have made a report.”

“Your emotional state is an important part of this picture, I’m not trying to torment you—”

“I killed them,” Catra said, rising to her feet so fast that it was almost a blur. Her voice sounded choked. “All of them. I didn’t even know what had happened until it was over. I didn’t know how many there were by the time I came to, covered in their blood and gore. Too many pieces to tell.”

Adora waited for her to sink back onto the couch. Eventually Catra remembered that she didn’t need to breathe and stopped panting. “You don’t recall anything during?” Adora asked.

Catra chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t. At first. It started to come back to me a few days later. Little scraps. Biting one of their throats or clawing someone’s gut. The way they screamed and begged for mercy.” Her eyes began to unfocus, staring past Adora. “And I liked doing it. They deserved everything I did to them. I pulled them all apart, piece by piece, and I would do it again.”

“And afterward, when you came to?”

That seemed to pull her out of her reverie. She clapped one hand over her mouth and retched, an artifact of having a regular digestive system. “Please.”

“It’s important, Catra.”

“I hated myself, all right? The whole thing was disgusting. Covered in their stench. I needed four showers to get all the blood out of my fur, and I can still smell it on my body now. Humans never had any trouble calling me an animal, and I acted like one.” Her expression grew concerned. “Was that the vampire, or was it me?”

Adora stopped spinning her pen and set it down. “Your reaction, your revulsion, was you. Because I know that despite the way you act, you don’t really want to hurt people, your abusers excepted.”

“I want to hurt that elf. Badly.”

Catra stewed in her thoughts of revenge while Adora went and opened the door. “Glimmer, dear, you can come in now. I need to speak with both of you.”

They slumped into one another on the couch, exhausted. Adora took a blood bag from her little refrigerator and put a dinner order in with the cafeteria. “Still not hungry,” Glimmer said.

“Yes, well, you need to eat. And I imagine we might be here for a while, it’s better that we don’t do this on an empty stomach,” Adora said as she handed the blood bag to Catra. It wasn’t the stock she was used to, but she still bit the top off and drank it slowly. “I owe you both an explanation. Before I start, Glimmer, what happened to your mother truly was an unfortunate product of chance. I apologize for seizing onto it to try and make something productive.”

Glimmer’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand what you’re apologizing for.”

“For turning what very nearly was a tragedy into a field test. A desensitization exercise, if you will, for Catra. I’ll spare you the details, they aren’t mine to share, but the risk of a vampire losing control like that in an open area is simply too great. It had to happen in a closed, controlled environment so that she would know how it feels—and the regret that comes afterward—so that she would know what to head off if you were ever in danger again. I shouldn’t say _if_. Life is dangerous for people like us.”

Catra’s fur stood on end. Glimmer’s hand dug into the arm of the couch as she asked, “You—you _planned_ this?”

There was a knock at the door before Adora could respond, and Mermista brought in a tray of food that she set in front of Glimmer. “Thank you,” Adora said. “You can take the rest of the evening off.”

Glimmer was still glaring at her when the door closed, though her gaze did slip down to her food a few times. “You’re angry and you have every right to be. It would be strange if you weren’t, honestly. I don’t want to explain to try and diffuse your anger, I want to provide context so that we’re all on the same page. If, after all of that, you still want to crack me across the jaw, I won’t stop you. So go ahead and eat.”

“You think you can explain putting us in danger?” Catra asked. The end of her tail flicked angrily, and her ears were beginning to flatten against the sides of her head.

“A controlled amount of danger to prevent the possibility of a massacre of people who _would_ be missed, not those wastes of space. They wanted Glimmer alive and bullets don’t stop you. I still had Double Trouble there if necessary—and just so we’re clear, they were acting at my instruction. I’m the one you should be cross with, not them.”

Adora endured a dark look from Glimmer as she blew on her soup. “Perhaps it would help if you knew why this issue was so important to me. Why I consider a citywide massacre a very real possibility.” She leaned forward and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please pay attention, because I don’t like telling this story and I’m not going to repeat myself. How much do you know about Rome?”

“The city?” Catra asked.

“The empire. I was born there, to one of the parvenu patrician families who won their status by supporting the right man vying for the purple. The family next to ours had a daughter my age—Mara.” Adora rolled her tongue between her teeth. “We would always go to the market or riding in the countryside together, we were the best of friends…can you see where this is going?”

Glimmer was stirring the soup on her tray. “You wanted to be more than friends.”

“Yes, we both did. But that was a different world and we didn’t have the freedom to pursue that openly. Our families were going to arrange marriages for us no matter what we said, so we had to get out of it. Mara joined the Vestal Virgins. I tried to do the same, but my father wouldn’t pay the same bribes to have them ignore the entry requirements, so I did something…drastic.”

Catra raised an eyebrow. “Drastic?”

“I threw myself into the Tiber.”

⁂

The first thing she felt was the freezing cold, and then its absence.

Adora coughed, spilling a mouthful of frigid water all over herself and gasping for a mouthful of air no matter how small. She thrashed across the ground, her feet brushing at the rushing surface of a river. Had she washed up somewhere? Or was this the afterlife? Her vision was little more than a dark haze no matter how much she wiped at her face to try and wick away the water. A heaviness settled on her shoulders, keeping her in place. Hands? Adora looked around for who might have been there with her, but the only reference she could conjure up for the face above her was a goddess. Stranger things had happened.

“Do you want to live?” the apparition asked. Her voice chilled Adora even further.

“Yes,” Adora choked out.

There was a deep, stabbing pain on the crook of her shoulder that spread a terrible agony through the rest of her body, and then darkness.

She gasped when she woke again, though she didn’t need to. Adora sat up, too fast, and nearly rolled forward into the river. When she threw her hands out to steady herself, one sank so deep into the ground that she ripped up a chunk of soil as she pulled it back. Questions burst through her mind, too fast to process. Adora looked around for the goddess who had fished her from the water, but she was alone. The only things around her were the wilderness and the dim lights of the city to the northeast.

Slowly, shakily, Adora rose to her feet and took a few cautious steps. Pressing down too hard with her foot made the ground depress beneath it. What had happened? She wasn’t a small woman, but neither had she been overly strong. As she tried to work it out in her head, a dizzying wave of hunger washed through her body and nearly sent her to her knees. Adora returned to the riverbank and drank down a mouthful of water cupped in her hands, but it provided no relief—not when it went down, and not when it came back up with a painful retch a moment later.

Her thoughts, as much as they _were_ thoughts and not simply bits of cogency flashing through the panic she was settling into, turned to Mara. That made sense, at least. She would think of Mara at the best of times, and now she seemed like the only safe harbor in whatever she had woken up to. Adora shook off the dizziness as best she could and started back toward the city.

With a forgotten shawl she snatched off a drying line from a farmhouse along the way, Adora followed the river back into the city, keeping close to the water in hopes that anyone else out in the night would avoid being around the river. She rather wished she felt free to avoid it, too. Her sense of smell was so sharp that she had to endure the stench of every bit of refuse tossed in. Even dealing with the Vigiles should they come upon her seemed preferable.

She crept around the edge of the Forum before she came to the temple to Vesta, where the low crackling of the sacred fire seemed like a roaring din in Adora’s ears. The way it threw light between the columns of the temple made keeping to the shadows difficult, and she had to take a wide path to the main entrance. Adora crept behind a column, peeked inside, and felt her heart melt.

“Mara,” she said, her voice rasping. It felt unfamiliar in her throat. Their newest initiate was charged with maintaining the fire through the night, and now she was sitting beside the enormous brazier, keeping the flame fed from a stack of chopped wood. Adora pulled down her stolen shawl and stepped into the temple. “Mara…”

She looked up from her vigil. “Adora?”

Their first movements toward one another were cautious, guarded, but then broke into a frantic run. Mindful of the way she had damaged the ground before, Adora was careful when she embraced Mara, touching her only lightly through her robe. A steady, repeating thump—Mara’s heartbeat, she realized—was all Adora could hear for several moments. Her mouth watered. “What happened?” Mara asked when they eased back. She clasped Adora’s hands and looked down at them, confused. “Why are you so _cold_?”

“I…I’m not sure. Is there somewhere we can speak? More privately?”

Mara led her to the dormitories and down a set of stairs to the catacombs beneath the temple complex, lighting the way with a torch that stung Adora’s eyes. Once they were underground, Mara sank into Adora’s chest despite the cold, grasping desperately at her. The flow of blood in her neck seemed to sing. “Did I fall asleep? Am I dreaming?”

“No, I don’t think so…”

Adora explained what she remembered: running out of her home, jumping from the bridge, washing up on the riverbank, the apparition and the pain that followed. Mara listened in stunned silence, one hand pressed over her mouth, as Adora sank against a wall. She clutched her stomach. “And now I’m so hungry I can barely think of anything else!”

“I can bring you something,” Mara offered. Adora shook her head.

“Just the idea of food makes my head spin. Even a bit of water came back up.” Adora rubbed her face and felt another ripple of hunger cut through her. “I don’t know what happened to me. What I’ve done to myself.”

Mara swept down on her in an instant. She brushed loose strands of hair from Adora’s face and held her close. “Then we’ll figure it out, won’t we?” she asked. Adora’s lips brushed at her throat. The sounds of the burning torch and dust falling nearby faded against the steady flow of blood beneath Mara’s skin, raging like a torrent. Soon she couldn’t even hear Mara humming to try and calm her down. Adora’s tongue flattened against the roof of her mouth. She carefully pressed her teeth to the skin of Mara’s throat, pushing until they broke through, and lapped up the little bead of blood that appeared.

Her body surrendered to an overwhelming, insensate pleasure at the taste, coppery yet delicious, thick yet smooth. Adora pressed the tip of her tongue to the puncture, trying to drown herself in it, as the withering hunger abated bit by bit. Mara clutched her arm, muttering _something_ , but the taste of her blood was so arresting, so ecstatic, that the temple could have come down around them for all Adora could pay attention. She drank, and drank, and drank until the cramps in her stomach calmed, until Mara’s grip on her arm weakened and her voice trailed away—

A hand fastened around Adora’s neck and yanked her upward, leaving Mara to crumple on the floor. Blood dribbled from the sides of Adora’s mouth as she tried to protest and kick at whoever was lifting her, but to no avail. Her newfound strength flailed helplessly until she was set down on the other side of the room, still restrained and unable to get back to Mara. That was the sole overriding thought in her head, the only thing she wanted, could ever want. Get back to Mara—

“That is quite enough,” their interloper said, and Adora’s thoughts pricked with familiarity. She turned around as best she could and saw the apparition from the riverbank, the vision of some goddess who had turned her into whatever she was—tall and willowy, with a dark complexion half-hidden behind a bone-white shawl. Her accent was slow and stilted. “I thought you did not survive. But here you are, drinking that girl dry.”

“Who are you? What did you…what _am_ I now? Is Mara going to be all right?”

She dropped Adora and seemed to hover across the room. Perhaps she really was hovering, Adora couldn’t see her legs moving beneath her gown. A flare of possessiveness burned through Adora as she watched her examine Mara. “In reverse order: perhaps, you took a great deal of her blood; I saved your life the only way possible considering your injuries from nearly drowning and being cast about in the river; and I am Lux Spes. You may not call me Lux, or Spes. Please use my full name.”

“Light…Hope?” Adora asked as she rubbed the back of her neck and took a few cautious steps forward. “Is that Homerite?”

Adora maneuvered around Light Hope or whatever her name was and crouched beside Mara. She looked terribly pale under the torchlight, shivering and curling in on herself for warmth. The marks on her neck were already healed, leaving only a pair of small dark spots in the crook of her shoulder. Adora brushed some loose hair from her eyes and Mara moved toward her touch, prompting Adora to gently pick her up and pull her into her lap. “What did you do to me?” Adora asked. “Why did I vomit up water and start treating blood like ichor? Why do I feel like I could reach out and crush a stone in my hand?”

Light Hope’s expression was utterly impassive as she towered over them. “This is what you asked for. It was the only way to save your life. As I said, I thought the trauma of the change had killed you. Otherwise I would have stayed to explain.”

“So explain now.”

⁂

“She told me everything while I cradled my first inadvertent blood bank,” Adora said, slumped in her seat. Catra and Glimmer at least looked more curious than angry with her, but their reactions were barely noticeable as she walked through her memories. “We didn’t have the word _vampire_ then—creatures of the night, that was what Light Hope called us. Mara was fine, if you’re wondering. She woke up a little while later and I fed her, explained as delicately as I could.”

Catra sucked the last bit of blood out of her snack. “You never told me this story.”

“I don’t like to, it doesn’t have a happy ending. And it paints me in a terrible light.” A fair light, but she didn’t say that. “Mara agreed to be my blood bank once I had learned to control myself, so I would visit her every night while she was keeping her vigil. Not always to feed. Sometimes we would just talk, or…well.”

“Vestal _Virgins_ , huh?” Glimmer asked in between spoonfuls of soup. Catra nodded, Adora frowned.

“Nothing two women did could count on that score. It was Rome, the world was different. Plus, legally, I was dead. Or at least I didn’t exist as far as my family was concerned. I scoured their name from history, but that’s another story. We were like that for almost thirty years, when her tenure would be up. She never wanted to become a vampire, and I tried to make my peace with the fact that I was going to outlive her.”

“So what happened?” Glimmer asked. “How does this dovetail into putting us in danger like you did?”

“Controlled amount of danger. And that madman Nero happened.” Adora rubbed one temple and set her jaw. She didn’t like this part of the story. “I should have killed him as soon as he took the purple. And once his chief advisor was forced out, he got worse, and worse, until his hired thugs tried to burn the city down so he could build a new palace. It kept on for six days. By then half of the Forum was cinders, the temple to Vesta was a ruin…the same with the dormitories behind it.”

Both of them tensed.

“I was optimistic. I thought she might have gone down to the catacombs.” Something in her gut knotted painfully. Adora stood and paced around the room, trying to prepare herself. A red tinge crept into the edges of her vision as she clutched the edge of her desk and broke off a chunk of oak. “Even now, I don’t remember exactly what happened. I found her body in the wreckage, still so lovely…and then I was waking up in a field I’d never seen a week later, covered in ash and dried blood. Smoke was still rising over the city when I returned. Please, don’t look at me like that.”

“You’re not looking at us, you don’t know what we’re doing,” Catra said.

“I’ve told this story twice before. I remember the way they looked at me. Light Hope told me later that the fire reignited at the House of the Vestals that night and burned for another three days. The second flare was even worse, to hear the reports. Thousands of people died.” Adora straightened up and went back to the sitting area. She couldn’t wallow in her pity now, this wasn’t about her any longer. “I was never able to be absolutely certain, but I think we can surmise what happened. And that’s the purpose of this long, sorry digression. I thought, Catra, that if you redded out in a place without any innocent bystanders it might…inoculate you. Introduce you to the feeling so you don’t lose yourself in it and burn down half a city. I thought it was important—necessary, even. But I was arrogant, thinking I could control everything. I’m sorry.”

She waited, watching for any twitch in Catra’s legs that might indicate her springing up to attack, but her turnling only sat there, stewing. It was Glimmer who launched herself at Adora, sinking a magically-enhanced fist into her gut. Adora recoiled, more out of surprise than anything. “Necessary?” Glimmer asked through a snarl, voice cracking as she struck Adora again. “My nightmares were necessary? Catra going into a rage was _necessary_? You fucking monster!”

Adora sighed and endured another punch. She waved vaguely to the other side of the office. “The storage room over there is empty. I won’t stop you from hitting me, but I’d rather we did this where nothing could break and hurt you.”

Glimmer stopped long enough to follow her into the closet. Adora pulled off her jacket and put her hands over her head as Catra lingered at the threshold. “Go on, then. No need to hold back.”

She didn’t. Even with her magic, it wasn’t anything that could really do damage, but enough strikes in concentrated areas began to ache after a while. Adora kept still and let her work it out, even when she felt bruises forming on her stomach with what little blood she still had. It was a small price to pay, all told. Too small. They both could have walked out and never said a word to her again.

Eventually Glimmer’s string of curses and invectives trailed off, and she began rubbing and shaking out her hands in between punches. Adora didn’t tell her to stop or slow down. She did that on her own. Adora brought her arms down as Glimmer left, squeezing Catra’s hand before she walked out of the office. Turnling and sire looked at one another for a long, silent moment. Finally Adora asked, “Want to take your turn?”

Catra shook her head. “I think I understand. The part of me that was capable of that is frightening. It needs some kind of control. Doesn’t mean I’m ever going to forgive you for putting Glimmer in danger, or that I know if I can trust you again…but I understand.”

“I’m glad of that, at least,” Adora said as she picked up her jacket.

“Tell your elf friend I won’t hunt them down. But I do have a good punch with their name on it for the next time we cross paths.”

Adora rankled at being ordered about, but she only nodded. Catra opened her mouth to say something else, then turned on her heel and walked out. When her footsteps trailed out of earshot, Adora trudged from the closet, rubbing gingerly at a spot on her side that Glimmer had focused on for several minutes, and took a blood bag from her refrigerator. She sank behind her desk as she sipped at it, raising one curtain to look out on the city below. “Maybe you are a monster,” she said, and watched the night fall.

⁂

It was past sunrise when Adora decided she wasn’t getting any work done and that sleeping was probably the best thing she could do. She thought of sprawling out on the couch in the corner for a few hours, but it still smelled of Catra and Glimmer and that seemed like the least conducive thing she could subject herself to if she wanted to sleep peacefully.

Mermista was already back at her desk by the time Adora left, visibly confused at seeing her boss there. “I don’t think I’m going to make my meetings today, please reschedule them for tomorrow with my apologies,” Adora said. “And could you phone down to the motor pool to have a car ready to take me home?”

“Bad night?”

“The worst in a long time. Have a good day.”

She made it down to the garage only by muscle memory, with her thoughts drifting ceaselessly all the way there. Her driver apologized a few times for the traffic they were hitting. Adora offered only mumbled responses until they pulled up at her building, when she thanked him and shuffled to the door. All the walking around was starting to rouse her by the time she stepped out of the elevator at the penthouse, but she still intended to fall into her bed.

Her intent unraveled somewhat when she heard someone breathing in her apartment. The pattern wasn’t unfamiliar, though it was unexpected. She tried the knob and found the door unlocked. “I never took back your spare key,” Adora said as her gaze snapped to Glimmer on the living room couch.

“No…I think you had a different idea about what I might be using it for. I could’ve just teleported in, but I needed the walk over here to clear my head.” Glimmer didn’t look away from the television, glowing against the drawn curtains, until Adora closed the door and came inside. Admittedly Adora _did_ have other ideas for that spare key, though none that should have applied now. She poured a small glass of wine out of reflex and set it on the coffee table before taking an armchair. Glimmer took the glass, swilling it without sampling the vintage. “You’re home late. The sun’s up.”

“And you’re awake past your bedtime. If you’re here for round two, you should know that you’re going to wear down your hands before you actually do any damage to me. I understand the impulse, but it’s going to hurt you more than me. For all your power you’re still a squishy human.”

“Like Mara?”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Adora said through a growl. Glimmer straightened up and pushed farther back into the couch. “Please. Now, is Catra here with you? Maybe waiting to break something very old and very valuable over my head?”

“No, she’s still too angry with you. I came because I needed to say this.”

She took two envelopes from her purse. Adora raised an eyebrow, but said nothing and let her go on. “We talked about this for hours. Yelled at some points. Cried at others. This,” Glimmer said, tapping her thumb against the envelopes, “is how close we came to handing in our resignations.”

That was allowed to settle in the air between them for a silent, interminable moment. Adora drummed the leather on her chair’s armrest. The firm glare Glimmer leveled at her wavered eventually, and she set the envelopes on her lap. “But?” Adora asked.

“But…we like the work we do. It’s important. And we decided that walking away wouldn’t change anything for the better. It wouldn’t change the thinking that leads to things like the last few weeks feeling _necessary_.” Glimmer put the letters back in her purse. “So Catra’s going to be gunning for your job eventually. Running the whole ship, taking it in a new direction. Getting some new blood. Despite all the administrative nonsense, as she called it.”

All of this must truly have rocked Catra to her core if she was willing to endure the idea of all that paperwork and politicking, Adora thought. Still, she had plenty of time to learn. And the idea of retirement after handing off the reins to a worthy successor wasn’t without its appeal. “I see. And you?”

“I’m going to work more with outreach and lobbying. I want to aim for full integration of all nonhumans, so we don’t have people who fall through the cracks in the law like Catra when she was a kid. So we don’t have people who know so little about us that they try to kidnap an angel for some nonexistent healing properties in her blood,” Glimmer said.

Adora nodded with a faint smile. Their plans seemed nobler than they were realistic, but she didn’t have the vigor of youth any longer to motivate her like they did. Maybe it was possible and she was simply caught in a survival mindset, more concerned with getting through the day than thriving, and the world had changed enough for what Glimmer and Catra wanted. Maybe. It seemed worth a try. Adora felt a swell of pride despite her initial thoughts of naiveté.

“I’m glad you both have some long-term goals to focus on,” she said. “I like yours especially, the outreach, the education. _Timendi causa est nascire_. And I’ll be happy to help you however I can. Building a better world seems like a much better revenge than bruising your hands on my stomach.”

“Less painful, too.”

They both chuckled. Glimmer stood and stretched with a yawn. “I should get back.”

“You should. I don’t need a worried magicat beating down my door.” Adora was tired again, suddenly. Some sleep would do her good. To her surprise, Glimmer hugged her when she got up. Adora decided to believe the way Glimmer’s arm tightened over one of her bruises was coincidental. The latent magical energy coming off her made the little hairs on Adora’s nape bristle, and she offered Glimmer a gentle pat between her shoulders. “You both have however much time you need before you’re ready to come back. Take care of each other, all right?”

“We will.”

Glimmer eased back, wrapped herself in violet light, and she was gone in an instant. Adora sank lengthwise across her couch rather than going to her bedroom. They would be all right, she thought with a smile. They had each other. She reached around for the remote on the coffee table to draw another set of curtains, shutting out the light of the new day as she curled up and slept beneath her shelves of dusty, ancient things.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. In the interest of not confusing you with my irregular update schedule, let me just say that this is the end of the fic.


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